


the minstrel and the witch

by AssumingMinds19



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alliances, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically just a swell of magic, Blood Magic, Destiny, Dwarves, Elf Culture & Customs, Elf/Human Relationship(s), Elves, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Family, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Half-Elves, Half-orc, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Magical War, Manipulation, Nightmares, One-Sided Attraction, Orc Culture, Orcs, Prophetic Dreams, Rangers, Romance, Shapeshifting, Until it isn't, Witches, slight slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-13 01:40:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20574347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssumingMinds19/pseuds/AssumingMinds19
Summary: Ever since the destruction of her people, Kara has wandered the land for twenty years as a Ranger, an ancient and mysterious order of warriors that has protected the land and its people since the time of the First Fae. Hiding her identity as the last true elf, she is sent on a mission to the dangerous and wild north to investigate rumours of magic and the sudden and strange illness of Lord Lionel that struck him down.Overnight she is thrust into a perilous path, navigating the dangerous terrain forge allies all to fight the greatest threat the realm has ever known, and whose evil knows no bounds. Soon the blood-splattered history of the north’s past will become it’s future, unless Kara and Lena, the illegitimate daughter of the stricken lord and the first human in history to be gifted with the magic of the fae, work together to defeat it. And as every step they take causes both Lena and Kara paths to intertwine, duty and destiny create something more than either could’ve ever imagined.





	1. The Green Eyes of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I know. I couldn't help myself. This fic is a love letter to every fantasy book, film or TV show that I've ever watched or read. I dedicate it entirely to them.

**_The fifth-year in the reign of King Michael IV, Winter, 812 H.E_ **

The drinkers in the taproom of the _Dancing Girl_ looked up as the door opened and an icy draught swirled into the room, bringing with it a flurry of snow.

“Close the door,” snarled a heavily built wagoner by the bar, not even bothering to turn and see who had entered. Other drinkers did, however, and there was a stir of mild interest as they saw that the newcomer was a stranger. Such travellers were few once winter put her icy grip on the northernmost fief of the realm. The fields and roads were covered with deep snow as often as not the temperature, driven down by the chill of the constant wind, often dropped below freezing. 

The north was a harsh place in the realm, harsher than most. Centuries ago, before humans had arrived from across the sea, this was the place of wood elves and fairies, where temperatures were temperature, and the sweet songs of summer and spring rang out clear. No dwarves found themselves here, staying even further north and deep in the mountains where they’d mine alongside the orcs they called friends.

But as tales told, with the arrival of men so came long, cruel winters. Too cruel for the gentle elves who slowly retreated to the warmer south and their fiercer southern brethren, slowly but surely, intermingling with the humans that had arrived there until nearly all trace of true elf-kind dwindled alongside their magic. The fairies they say, vanished altogether, never to be seen again in this land, but the intermingling of blood in the south left it’s people different. Slightly whimsical, some might say, but no less interesting. In the north, though, there had been no intermingling. Pure human and human does, with a deep suspicion of anyone who wasn’t. They didn’t understand the native magic that their coming had trampled, they feared it even, but they bent and fought the land until they had some understanding of it. And they guarded it proudly, even as, ironically, the south had become modernised and tamed as the years went on and the north remained wild and tangled. Occasionally there would be some trade with the northern dwarf lords or a bitter fight between orcs and humans when territory was disputed along the border, but mostly they were left well enough alone. Far enough away from the king that was said to rule them, and happy to be so. 

The door shut, cutting off the icy blast from the outside, and the candles and fire sealed down from the mad dance the wind had set them to. The newcomer threw back the deep cowl of their mottled cloak and shook a thick powder of snow from their shoulders. The ripple of interest that had been struck grew slightly and tight at the sight of tumbling, long golden hair.

She was a young woman, the lightness of her face and lack of lines marking her as no older than her twenties. She was tall too, taller than most girls anyway, and broad in the shoulders. Not fit in a way that a farmer’s daughter might be, hauling wagons through the snow as well as her brothers, but fit and lean in a natural way that hid coiled and trained strength under her well-worn clothes. A blindingly white shepherd dog had slipped in behind her, eyes riveted on the stranger’s face, waiting for a commence. She gestured to an empty table near the front of the room, and the dog padded silently towards it. The men the dog slinked past subconsciously shifted away, nervous over its wolflike demeanour and size, but they needn’t have worried. The dog lay comfortably under the table, forepaws sliding out in front of it till they lay stitched out. Their eyes continued to roam the taproom, however, belying their relaxed appearance. 

It made the men in the room shift uneasily, but the few women sitting or serving drinks grinned to themselves at the way the strange woman had so easily thrown their menfolk off balance with some long tresses of hair and a large dog. Their uneasiness grew once more when the young stranger loosened her cloak, striding over towards the table she had picked, and spread it over the back of the chair to dry in the crackling fire’s heat. 

There was a further murmur, tinged with disapproval at the notions of the strange woman when they saw what she had been sheltering beneath her cloak from the elements. She placed the longbow she had been carried, still strung, on the table. Pulling out the chair closest to the wall so she could sit with her back to it and have a comprehensive view of the room. Even though her face remained pleasant, a small interested smile playing at her mouth as she looked around, the massive weapon between her and everyone else was warning enough not to try their luck. No man in the room, no matter how stupid or scornful, felt the need to be on the other end of it or the black fletched arrows they hadn’t noticed until they hung deadly in a quiver from the back of another chair within easy reach of the stranger. 

The growing tension in the room didn’t seem to affect the smiling girl, for now, that the men could see her face longer in the light they decided she was definitely a girl, reached for another case that she had laid on the table alongside her bow. The townsfolk blinked, wondering when exactly it had appeared from, but the tension in the room shifted to pleasure when they realised that the case was shaped around an instrument. 

If travellers were rare in winter this far north, so was entertainment. And as strange as this girl was, with her deadly bow, fierce dog and the two long knives that were strapped to her belt, the project of music on a cold night was more than enough to overlook it until the morrow or fortunes turned. The patrons present saw the prospect of a more exciting night than they had anticipated, this time in a positive rather than a dangerous way. Even the previous surly wagoner’s face split with a smile, his thoughts on the proper place of women vanishing.

“Musician, are you?” He asked expectantly, and the stranger nodded, smiling wider in return.

“An honest minstrel, my friend, making her way through the bitter cold of your beautiful countryside.”

Some of the other drinkers, the same men that had shied at the dog and the bow, moved a little closer. The women amongst them rolled their eyes but hid it well, one of the serving girls blushing scarlet when the young minstrel noticed and sent a wink her way.

“If ye be a minstrel, why’d ye have tha’?” One man with a hard face demanded, his northern accent broad and loose as his wrinkled finger jutted out towards the weapon on the table. “Not somethin’ a respectable woman’d be carryin’, ye ken?”

A few of the men murmured and nodded in agreement and suspicion with the man, but the vast majority of the crowd shot him nasty looks, not wanting the odd woman to take offence at his words and risk her chance in the blizzard against staying amongst an unfriendly crowd. 

“Don’t you be mindin’ him, lass,” the serving girl from earlier quickly interjected, eyeing the man who spoke with annoyance. “He’s not the type to understand that other’s business be not his own.” 

She needn’t have worried though, the stranger’s happy expression didn’t dim at the man’s blunt question and veiled insult to her reputation.

“No offence taken, miss,” answered the girl, taking the comment in her stride with a wave of her hand. “It’s dangerous times about, you know. I’d be worrying for my own sanity if I went wandering with no ability to keep myself safe. You northern folk know better than most, about the dangers that exist when you step out your front door.”

A ripple of gruff agreement at her compliment ran through them. Nothing pleased a people more than a mutual agreement that they knew better than others when it came to anything of import. The suspicious man’s wounded pride at members of the group turning on him was lessened too as if in the end he had some part in the strange girl’s common sense.

“So, let’s have a tune then,” the burly wagoner suggested. 

There was a murmur of assent from the rest of the room.

The girl considered the request, cocking her head to the side for a moment before she raised her cupped hands to her mouth and blew on them. Smiling, she replied, “It’s a bitter night out there, my friend. My hands are close to frozen.”

“You could warm them round this,” another voice told her. She glanced up and saw that the tavern keeper had moved from behind the bar to place a steaming tankard of mulled wine on the table in front of her, taking care not to brush the lacquered wood of the bow. 

The stranger wrapped her hands around the warm drink and nodded appreciatively as she sniffed the aromatic steam rising from the tankard.

“Yes, this would certainly seem to do the trick,” she replied. 

The tavern keeper winked at her with friendly ease.

“On the house, of course,” he said. 

The stranger nodded. It was no more than her due. The presence of a minstrel, even a strange one and perhaps because of it, would ensure that the inn did excellent business that night. The drinkers would stay longer and order more. The mistral took a deep sip of her wine, sighed appreciatively, then finished the process of unbuckling the straps fastening the instrument's case. She drew it from it’s shaped resting place and spent a few minutes returning. The sudden change from the icy cold outside to the warmth of the tavern had thrown the strings hopelessly out of tune.

Satisfied, she strummed a chord, made another minor adjustment and looked around the room, meeting the expectant gazes of the occupants, including her grizzled questioner, with another wide grin.

“Perhaps a few songs before my supper,” she said to no one in particular, then added, “I assume there _is _a supper?”

“Yes, indeed, my friend,” the tavern keeper replied quickly. “A fine lamb casserole that my wife made, with fresh bread, boiled, peppered potatoes and more wine.”

The girl nodded, an agreement having been reached. “So it’s a few songs, then my supper- then more songs. How does that sound?” She asked. There was a chorus of approval from the room. Before it had died away, she launched into a jaunty introduction to _Fairway Girl._

_“Fairway girl, you sing so sweet with gold in your hair_

_Is it happiness in the gown you wear_

_I would follow you anywhere,_

_my fairway girl.”_

She looked up, nodding encouragement to the small crowd in the taproom as they joined in on the chorus of the popular country love song, tapping their mugs on the tables and singing in rough voices;

_“Dance with me to the moon and back,_

_Fairway girl,_

_I’ll love you anywhere,_

_You’re my one, my heart, my life_

_Send your light to me,_

_Fairway girl_

_You are the one for me.”_

Then, as she reached the second verse, they fell silent, leaving the singing to her until the chorus again, when their voices joined with her’s once more. It was a merry, bouncing song, which anyone in the realm would know well from the time they could walk. Of simple love and a yearning of hearts that even children could understand. And if in the occasional notes, the listeners noticed that there was a little too much injected emotion, they didn’t reflect it beyond understanding looks. 

All knew the sting of lost love and could recognise in the stranger’s words.

When the minstrel reached the final chorus and the room joined in with her again, her face flushed with pleasure. When she sounded the final chord, the inn patrons broke into a clamour of applause, the last vestiges of suspicion banished from the room at the sight of the youth’s bashful expression. 

Even the curdled heart of the man who had questioned her, melted slightly. After all, she was only young, if a little odd with the carriage of someone who knew her way around her weapons. But as she said, plenty of folks had fallen prey to those hiding in the dark shadows of the night, and it’d probably been wise of her da not to let her go off into the world with knowledge of its dangers. He’d decided that no one could hold that against her, especially as she sang so sweetly. Her words even bringing back memories of his own first love.

The minstrel sang another four songs for them. _Nighttime Sweet, Jenny in the Forest, Harvest Time _and _The Galloping Stallion, _a hard-driving song with a galloping rhythm that had fist pounding and feet tapping throughout the room. As she finished the last, she glanced down at the dog, lying with their eyes glued on her, and mouthed a word at her.

Instantly, the large dog came to its haunches, threw back her head and barked long and loud. The closest men, including the wagoner, spilled ale on themselves in their rush to stumble back, making the people furthest from them laughed from the safety of their positions.

“What’s that, Lucky?” She asked the dog, it instantly quieting and falling silent to the floor, large tail thumping the boards of the floor. The stranger looked up at the half grumbling, half sniggering, crowd and spread her hands in apology, grinning at them.

“Sorry my friends. My manager here says it’s time for me to eat. We’ve had a long day in the cold, and he gets a tenth of my earnings - and my dinner.”

A gust of laughter rang around the room. They were country folk, and they knew a well-trained dog when they saw one. They also appreciated the girl’s gentle way of reminding the tavern keeper that she was owed a dinner.

It wasn’t long coming. The same serving girl that had blushed so readily under the stranger girl’s wink hurried a steaming plate of the lamb casserole to her table. Without her mentioning it further, she also set down a bowl of meat scraps, bones and gravy for the dog. The minstrel smiled her thanks, the girl flushing beetroot red again, before rushing away to the kitchen. The stranger also nodded her thanks to the man behind the bar. The raven keeper, bury refilling tankards for the people whose throats were dry from singing, smiled widely at him. 

“Does your horse need tendin’ to, lass?” He called to her, the girl replying through a mouthful of thick stew.

“I took the liberty of putting my horses in your barn, tavern keeper. It’s too foul a night for them to be left outside.”

The man nodded his agreement, and the stranger dug into her food once more, the little grace in her movements and elbows on the table reassuring the people in the room heartily that she was one of them — no noble airs or flights of fancy about her. Despite her oddities, she had sensible commoners bearing. She sat amongst them with ease and took their earlier suspicion without complaint, but didn’t bow to it either in a rush to earn their approval. She worked hard and well for her dinner, which was something few southerners understood in their opinion. And have no doubt, everyone not from their fief was a southerner to them. 

The ugly threat that the room had taken from the bow’s appearance long forgotten, the wagoner who had seemed so ill-tempered when she had first arrived now made his way to the table where the stranger sat eating. Taking care not to presume to sit down and intrude on the minstrel’s personal space, he set down in front of the girl a full tankard of mulled wine in front of her instead. 

“Good music, lass,” he said. “That’s for you there.”

The musician, he mouth full again, nodded her thanks. Several of the other customers now moved closer, stepping around the dog as each one dropped a few coins in the open case on the table. There were a fair few silvers amongst the coppers too, enough to make the girl grin wildly once she’d scrapped the bowl clean of stew.

“You’ve a deft hand on that lute of yours, girlie,” one of them said.

“It’s not a lute,” the stranger replied, seemingly automatic. “It doesn’t have the same amount…”

The stranger stopped themselves and just nodded her thanks instead, the patron smiling in turn.

Now finished, the stranger pushed the bowl away, looking to her dog once more, which set him off barking.

“Lucky? What’s that you say?” The stranger called, the dog instantly falling silent once more. “It’s time for me to entertain these folks?” She glanced up at the smiling faces around her, shrugging and grinned at them. “He’s a hard taskmaster,” she declared, reaching for her instrument.

She played for another hour: love songs, lively songs, sad songs. And one in particular that caused the room to fall quiet at the feeling in the girl’s voice. _The Green Eyes of Love. _It was a haunting and sad ballad, and she sang it well, but there was an air of some deep personal meaning in the lyrics, even though they weren’t her own. As she finished it, at least half, the room had misty eyes, the hard-faced man no longer so hard-faced as he wiped away tears, the song having reached into his heart. 

As she played, the coins had continued to find their way into the case, amounting to a substantial enough amount that her eyebrow arched upon inspection. The patrons remained pleased at her bashful satisfaction, and the tavern-keeper, who had left the bar to one f his serving girls and sat close by the stranger, glanced at the water clock that dripped slowly on the mantle place. 

“Perhaps one more?” He asked, and the minstrel nodded easily.

Gathering her thoughts for a moment, she strummed a minor chord sequence and began singing a well-known nonsense song;

_“By a muddy ditch a drunken witch_

_in a voice that was coarser and coarser_

_sang like a crow so the people would know_

_of her love for the cross-eyed sorcerer.”_

The change in the room the moment she began singing was instant. People exchanged fearful glances. Eyes were cast down, and several moved away from her, including the wagoner and the hard-faced man. 

“_Oh the cross-eyed sorcery was called Wollygelly_

_he had a breath like a goat and a_

_big fat belly_

_and a nose that…”_

She let the song tail away as if noticing the discomfort among her listeners for the first time.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling at the room. “Is something wrong?”

Again, glances were exchanged, and the people who just a few moments ago were laughing and applauding her were now unwilling to meet her gaze. The hard-faced man, obviously troubled, said in an apologetic tone, “It’s no’ the time or place teh be makin’ fun of sorcerers, lass. Even wit’ tha’ mighty fine bow.”

“You weren’t to know, of course,” the tavern keeper put it, and there was a chorus of agreement.

The stranger's smile widened, her expression as artless as it could be.

“I wasn’t to know what?” She asked. There was a pause, then the burly wagoner took the plunge and replied.

“Strange things is happening in this fief these days is all.”

“And these nights,” added a some and again a chorus of agreement sounded.

The strangers innocent and inquiring expression didn’t change at her words.

“You mean… something to do with magic?” She asked in a hushed voice. The room went silent for a moment, people looking fearfully over their shoulders and towards the door as if expecting the see a sorcerer, witch or elf burst in at any moment. Then the tavern keeper answered.

“It’s not for us to say what it is. But there are strange goings-on. Strange sights.”

“Particularly in De’eoh Forest,” said a tall farmer and, his northern accent butchering the elvish name. Once more, the others agreed.   
  
“Strange sights, sounds- unearthly sounds they are. They’d chill your blood. I’ve heard them once, and that's enough for me. Goblin roars and trolls crunching. We all know that the elves have long since abandoned the north in favour of the southern forests, but sometimes…”

It seemed that once their initial reluctance was overcome, people wanted to discuss the subject as if it held a fascination for them that they wanted to share. 

“What sort of things do you see?” The minstrel asked.

“Lights, mainly- little balls of coloured light that move through the trees. And dark shapes. Shapes that move just outside your vision’s range.”

A log fell into the fire with pop, and the mistral jumped as if feeling the talk of sounds and sights right in her bones, the same way the rest of them did. On a dark night in the cold snow-driven land of the north, surrounded by strange tales, only a fool wouldn’t listen to the warnings of locals. 

“And the Superman,” said the wagoner. This time, silence fell over the room. Several people made the sign to ward off evil. The wagoner regarded them all with a flushed face. 

“Oh, believe me, I’ve seen him all right. Only for a second mind. But he was there.”

“What exactly is he? Not elf, you say… but mayhap an orc?” The stranger asked.

“Exactly? Nobody knows. But I’ve seen him. He’s huge — a warrior in dark armour and as tall as a house. And you can see through him almost, with a billowing cape as all as if he be soaring through the sky. He’s there, and then he’s gone before you’ve actually seen him proper. But I know I’ve seen him, all right.” 

His gaze went across the room, challenging others to tell him he was wrong. 

“That’s enough of that talk now, Barney,” said the tavern keeper. “People have a way to go to reach their homes this night, and it’s best not to talk about such matters. Setting in fear of those blasted elves, when we well now they left long ago.”

There was a mumble of agreement in the room, and the minstrel struck another chord.

“Well, I agree; this is no time to sing about magic. Perhaps we should finish with one about a drunken king and a staggering dragon?”

The dog barked long and loud once more, and the dark mood in the room receded instantly. 

“What’s that, Lucky? You agree? Well then, we’d better get to it.” And she launched into it straightaway.

The room swelled with laughter as her singing grew loud and boisterous, the bawdier humour dispelling all blackness as she laced out the talks of a knock-kneed staggering dragon and a king with serious digestive issues. She was accompanied by the dog’s enthusiastic barking every time the singer gave him a look, and that added to the laughter. 

Finally, after the song finished, and the patron’s stumbled home, and the minstrel greeted the tavern keeper with a tried smile and begged for a glass of warmed milk. Two scullery maids tending to the cleanup, the tavern keeper sat across from her with his glass, clearly a kindred spirit. The minstrel took an appreciative sip of her drink and sighed happily.”

“A good night tonight,” the innkeeper said, an unspoken question behind the words. 

The stranger noted.

“For both of us, I think,” he replied. 

There was an expectant silence as the tavern keeper waited to see if the minstrel would say more. Finally, deciding that she was laving the running to him, he held out his hand across the table. 

“Caleb Northridge is the name, by the way. We never got round to introductions.”

The minstrel shook his hand with a smile.

“Linda Danvers.”

The innkeeper nodded several times as if the name meant something to him. 

“Yes, a good night it was,” he replaced.

Linda sipped her milk, saying nothing. Finally, Caleb broached the subject that was on his mind.

“Be an even better one tomorrow night. End of the week, we usually get a good crowd. Be even buffer than usual if word gets around that there's a minstrel in the village.”

He looked at Linda across the top of his drink.

“Planning to stay another night after this, were you?”

The girl considered his words for a bit.

“I hadn’t decided,” she said. “I suppose I could move on.”

“Where to?” Caleb asked quickly. 

Linda shrugged as if the matter was of no great importance.

“Eventually to Castle Luthor. I’ve heard that they give a warm welcome to entertainers. I suppose there’s precious little to keep people occupied once the snows come,” she added.

Caleb was already shaking his head at her words.

“You’ll get no welcome from the castle,” he said. “Tragedy and strife’s been following that family since before you were born.”

Linda frowned slightly.

“What, they break off the wrong betrothal or something? Or marry the wrong cousin and mess with the rules of religion?”

She grinned in joke, but there was no answering smile from the innkeeper. 

“There’s little of religion about it,” he said darkly. “Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Not the Black Art?” Linda asked casually, the country term for sorcery rolling around the room with a coiled snake ready to strike.

This time, Caleb looked around quickly before answering.

“So they say,” his voice lowered. “Strangeness, bad blood, lying in that family… going all the way back to the first arrival of men in this land and mayhap even before.”

Linda hunched slightly over her milk, shifting forward.

“You don’t think…. they’ve got the elf in them?”

It was hushed and fearful, and the innkeeper nodded appreciatively for her caution. Elves were not something to joke about, bloodthirsty and treacherous creatures that they were.

“Who’s to say?” He answered in a lowered voice. “I just know that something went sour and wrong in that family a long time ago. Ever since the first age, when the king sent his disinherited his oldest mad son and sent him to the north, the line has been twisted. Oh, there’s the occasional generation that has some sanity, and they’ve plenty of cunning and intelligence, but they can be wicked cruel.”

The innkeeper could still feel the public whipping on his back that he had gotten from the Luthor’s soldiers when he had been caught poaching as a boy. He was lucky that he didn’t lose a hand. 

“Taking and taking what they will, when they will,” he continued darkly. “Used to be a girl in the village, I grew up with her so. Beautiful as could be with a voice prettier then you’d ever heard. Then, along comes Lord Lionel, taking one look at her and spirited her away for a few months, only for her to return with a round belly full of his child.”

The stranger’s eyebrow arched but seemed invested in the tale.

"Course, old Lady Lillian couldn’t be handling the shame of a bastard of her lord and husband running amok here,” the innkeeper continued, bracing himself on the bar and lowering his voice even more so the girls wouldn't overhear them. “So the rumour was she banished the girl before her babe was even born to the south, planted with some second cousin or some such where she’d be looked after from afar… very far.”

The innkeeper let out a sad sigh.

“But the distance weren’t enough, they say,” he continued in a whisper. “For the lady grew wicked with jealous and hate as each day passed, fearing the lover and the babe even from here. My sister, she that works in the castle, still remembers the letters that the lady would send, flying back and forth to her relative in the south, until one day she got a letter that had her grinning from ear to ear. There was an attack, a renegade group of bandits filled with all manner of fae folk, them killing the village whereupon the mother and child be. The mother they killed where she stood they say, but they left the girl alive and sitting in a pool of her mother’s blood.”

Linda’s eyes widened at that, letting out a long, low whistle.

“You think the Lady arranged the attack?” She husked in question.

The man shrugged.

“Who am I to say?” He answered. “All I know is that Lady Lillian was awfully happy about it.”

The minstrel nodded.

“And the child?”

“My lord had a vested interest in her safety, for all his faults,” the man explained. "He argued with his lady for years about it, but when he found out about her mother’s death, he went down southern and brought the girl back herself.”

He tapped the bar with his mug.

“I seen her, as she passed on through here,” he whispered remembered. “All pale and cold as a winter’s night, but as beautiful as her mother had been, if not more so.” 

“But she had a darkness in her heart, that one,” he finished warningly. “Same as any Luthor. The household took her in, alright. They didn’t have much of a choice.”

Caleb nodded thoughtfully.

“I supposed as much as it grated the lady to make the bastard a true born, her son was still first in line by birth and by sex,” he mulled over, before shaking his finger in Linda’s face. “But the strangeness of the Luthor’s didn’t end there, oh no. Mark me, that girl bought back some of that southern witch magic with her when she came back.”

He looked around furtively, before leaning even closer to whisper even softer.

“Something happened that day her mother died. Rumour is that they did kill the real girl and left a changeling in her place. Roosters found with cut throats in the castle since, horses spooked and runoff, servants vanishing and never to be heard of again… Then, not five moons past, the old Lord Lionel was struck down. Healthy as you or me one minute. The next, he’s lying close to death, barely breathing, eyes wide open but seeing nothing, hearing nothing and saying nothing.”

“The healers, what do they say?” Linda asked.

Caleb snorted in scorn.

“What do they ever know? They can’t explain his condition. Not that they can do anything to ease it. Occasionally, he rouses himself enough to take a little food, but he’s barely conscious even then. And then he’s gone again, back into his trance.”

Linda set her empty mug down, gnawing at her lower lip.

“Is this anything to do with that business earlier?” She asked. “The mysterious warrior person and such?”

Again, Caleb hesitated before answering. But it seemed easier to discuss these matters now when he knew that both he and the girl would be staying here for the night.

“If you ask me, yes,” he said. “People say that Morgana had returned to De’eoh Forest.”

“Morgana?” Linda repeated.

“A black artist. A witch. One of the worst kind. She be the one to put a curse on the Luthor family, centuries ago. A feud with an ancestor or some such. They say she learnt her craft from the northern elves themselves, that they taught it to her freely before they left. Leaving behind the last of their twisted hate to inflict pain on this fief.”

“Centuries?” Linda repeated, her voice edged with disbelief. “How long does a witch live, anyway?”

Caleb raised an admonishing finger.

“Don’t be too quick to disbelieve,” he said. “Nobody knows how long witched can live. You ken better mayhap about the elf-kind lives southern, but we northerners remember the old tales from the first times we arrived. You don’t know what happened when you mixed elf-magic with the stuff human’s conjured in jealousy. I’d say it’s pretty much up to the witch herself. But these going on in De’eoh don’t have any other explanation. Nor does Lord Lionel’s strange sickness. Stories go that it was exactly the same sickness struck down is ancestor when he fought with Morgana.”

“So it this Morgana is in De’eoh Forest, why doesn’t someone from the castle take a few soldiers in an give her a good seeing to?” Linda asked. “Someone must have taken charge since Lionel’s incapable?”

“You don’t just march into De’eoh Forest, Linda Danvers,” the man replied with a shake of his head. “It’s a tangle of trees and undergrowth in there, with paths that twist and turn on themselves and branches above you so thick you only see the sun at noon. There's and mere as well. Step in that, and you’ll sink the bottom and never be seen again.”

Linda seemed to consider his words carefully before letting out a despondent sigh.

“So there’s nobody in charge at the Castle?” She said, and added. “That’s a blow. I was hoping to winter there- at least a few weeks.”

Caleb pursed his lips before letting out a breath and reaching out to pat the girl’s hand reassuringly.

“Oh, you’ll most likely find a position there,” he continued. “Lionel’s son, Lex, has taken over the running of things. He’s a fine warrior, a natural leader and popular with the men at arms. The first good Luthor in three generations, I say.”

“A good thing too, then,” Linda mused, her mood brightening. “This close to the border with who knows what on the other side.”

The tavern keeper nodded his assent, but his mood seemed to darken.

“But his position is… well,” he continued. “You heard what I said about the daughter, the ill-born they call her. Very strange girl. Some say she might even be behind her father’s illness.”

Linda looked up quickly.

“She’s very withdrawn, very mysterious,” the man explained. “Wears black wherever she goes, even though her father’s not dead yet. Calls herself a scholar. But what she’s studying, I don’t want to know.”

“You think she might be this… Morgana?” The girl asked hesitantly.

Caleb grew uncomfortable now that he had been asked point-blank to make a statement one way or the other. He shifted in his seat.

“I’m not saying that it’s so,” Caleb answered finally. “But I’m saying I wouldn’t be too surprised it were. Word has it that she spends all her time in her tower room, studying books and old scrolls that he’s got his hands on. Just gives everyone the chills being near her.”

Linda nodded in acceptance before she rose and stretched. 

“Well, as it’s all beyond a simple girl like me. I’ll just be hoping for a best and lodging to make a little money to see me on my way. But tonight, and tomorrow, I’ll spend in our castle.”

Caleb smiled, content with the news. He gestured to the still half-full milk pitcher on the table between them.

“Fine by me. Want another cup before bed?”

Linda smiled, holding out her mug.

“Why not?"

* * *

When she finally stepped into the small room, the innkeeper had given her, her dog settled on the floor, curling up as much as his long form would allow, and fell asleep. She stretched out her fingers instead after placing her pack, instrument and bow down; she was finally able to think through the night’s events. The rumours of strange happenings in the fief corroborated what news had filtered south, which was of course why she had been given this mission in the first place. 

Because of course, she wasn’t a minstrel at all, but a Ranger. A Ranger on a mission to find what exactly had gone wrong in this fief to cause rumours to reach so far south of dangerous tidings.

The Ranger order of the realm was almost as old as the land itself. Roots beginning at the times of the first elves, when the whole land would sing together from all four corners. An order of warriors and mages and all the best that could be offered, those with a deep understanding and connection to the land whose lives were dedicated to a singular purpose of protecting the place they called home. Later, it had been in bloodshed. Fighting with the humans that arrived here, though it seemed that these so-called northerners seemed to forget their part in the violence that they had brought. 

And finally, once their people had intermingled together and spread, their order had become agents of the land once more. Southern elves, orcs, dwarves and humans working in conjunction with the king, if not entirely on his side. Their number was fewer now, but they were still as feared and as mysterious to the common folk as they had ever been since after the first times. 

Kara knew the true tales better than most, while the order was filled with mixed blood and dwindling in magic, she was full elf-kind. Raised in the hidden city of Arh’Goh, deep in the forests of the south, her people were descended directly from the lines of the northern elves that had once lived here. This was her homeland, and where the first order of rangers had been born.

And now she was the only northern elf left — the last vestige of a broken line. The northern elves had never been the same as their southern brethren. They had been refugees, fleeing their home from invaders, only to discover that their cousins from the south had embraced the humans with open arms. There had been anger, fear, resentment, and ignorance and with their numbers small, they had carved out a place for themselves in the deep woods of the south, hidden and protected against the world with woven and spun spells. Never wishing to be found. 

They had buried the roots of themselves deep into the trees, earth and animals until the very air sung with magic. Believing themselves superior to the rest of the world they had hidden from, wrapping themselves deeper and deeper into the hearts of things they should never have entered. Their magic became unstable, volatile, things in motion that could not be undone. And despite warnings of their destruction, they refused to believe it possible. Not not to the last true elves in the realm. 

Then the entirety of their world unravelled.

And here Kara was the first northern elf to set foot in the north since the days Flame-bird and Nightwing. And she would be the last. 

Kara stepped off from the door, the thoughts of being in a land she had heard stories about her whole life had plagued her since she had entered this frozen place three days ago, but she had little time now to dwell on it. Walking towards the wash and basin in the corner. Pouring some water gently into the bowl, she carefully reached into the pouch on her belt, pulling out the small purple vial of liquid. Uncorking it, she let a single drop fall into the water, making it dance and fill until it turned violet.

She whispered a few words in elvish, the liquid in the bowl began to swirl and dance until it cleared and changed into a mimic of a clear window into a room hundreds of leagues away. A figure hunched over the desk, a stack of parchment in front of them as they worked by candlelight. 

“Alex.”

The redhead looked up at her call, walking towards the mirror where Kara’s spell showed her and her surroundings. 

“Kara, I gather you’ve found your way there in one piece.”

“More or less, though my cover story has caused me to lose my voice more than once.”

“They wouldn’t exactly line up to talk with you if they knew who you were, would they? Rangers are treated with suspicion all too often by the smallfolk, especially in the north. Adding the fact that you’re an elf-“

“Nobody knows that I’m an elf. Only you and Eliza.”

Kara reached up to touch her face, running her fingers over her jawline until they reached the tips of her rounded ears. She had worn the glamour of a human for so long that she had almost forgotten what she was supposed to look like. There were still plenty in the land that resembled their elven ancestors, but it had been decided long ago that the fewer people asked questions about Kara’s origins the better.

“I didn’t want to come,” she finished.

Alex’s face coloured with frustration.

  
“As you’ve made repeatedly clear,” she answered dryly. “As I’ve made repeatedly clear as your commandant, you didn’t have a choice. You’re the only one that could do this. Whispers of sorcery in the north? A lord that’s been mysteriously struck down? People don’t talk to Rangers at the best of times, half of them think we’re sorcerers ourselves.”

Kara rubbed her fingers together, creating a small spark.

“Some of us are,” she answered.

Alex wasn’t her sister, not really, but of all the people Kara had met since she had been forced into human society, she was the one she felt closest too. Oddly, even though Kara had known Alex since she was a little girl, the other woman commanded and carried herself so well that sometimes even Kara forgot that she nearly three times her age.

And Alex was the commandant of the Rangers, taking over from her father. Leadership positions in the warrior arts weren’t usually awarded to women in the realm, at least not in human society. But the Ranger Corps were the oldest and most secretive of combatant groups in the kingdom and rarely filled so-called ‘tradition’. With its origins traced back to the time of the elves, even the king who they answered too didn’t entirely know what they did. To minimise enemy knowledge about them, the Corps shrouded itself in a wealth of mystery and misinformation. Training in stealth, weapons, tactical thinking, riding and as much magic as each member was capable of. Their numbers were few and kept so secretively that even Kara might not know if she was sitting next to one at dinner. The leader of such a group could only be extraordinary themselves, and when the role of commandant had to be filled, Alex had been the first choice. 

Alex’s main jobs consisted of wrangling with the King and court, trying to continually convince them that the Corps was necessary to the defence of the realm and its people. Kara had little regard for the ruling lords and ladies in the land, and as such hadn’t seen Alex in person in over a year now. Preferring to exist outside of the major cities and constantly roam before being sent on a mission.

And that’s what she was doing now, somewhat reluctantly.

“The north is different,” Alex said flatly.

Kara looked outside of the small window, over the snowscape landscape.

“I can see that,” she muttered, trying not to let her annoyance with being in this place and its suspicious people colour her tone.

Alex let out a sigh, informing Kara that she had failed.

“You know how tenuous the position is in the north already,” Alex answered. “Whispers of secession, the anti-crown sentiment-“

Kara snorted, locking eyes with Alex through the water.

“Well, you can hardly blame them for that.”

Alex well knew Kara's views on the monarchy. Her disdain stemmed from her heritage, after all, there were enough horror stories from the times of the first men, and from the past century of ill-treatment towards their subjects had caused to south, and particularly the capital to descend into a corrupt and unjust society. The low-born were treated like animals while the nobles ate like kings in their ivory towers. The king himself, so above all worldly troubles, refused even to leave the palace unless he was visiting his summer castle. 

Useless would be the kindest word in Kara’s vocabulary to describe him.

“Kara, if the north becomes vulnerable, if the border becomes weak, we might not be able to put the genie back into that bottle,” Alex explained for what felt like the millionth time. “We haven’t had a Ranger up there in years; we need to know what’s going on. It’s easier for you than most. People like to talk to you.”

Kara grumbled to herself, thinking that people wouldn’t want to talk to her at all if they could hear her innermost thoughts.

“You’re young, and you have a fresh-faced innocent look that disarms them.”

Kara’s eyes narrowed at the teasing words, but Alex’s face remained smooth with no hint of guile. If there was one thing that equally irritated and occasionally benefited Kara, it was that to human eyes; she only looked to be a woman in her twenties. Most of the older people who would warn her of her lack of knowledge, and rebuke her for offering an opinion on anything, were younger than she.

And of course, Alex knew that. 

“And posing as a minstrel was the perfect cover,” Alex continued. “They travel, they’re welcome everywhere, and people talk to them… and in front of them. You’re the only Ranger we have that fits all the requirements and plays an instrument decently. That’s why I chose you. They’ll never suspect you.”

Kara had to concede the point, and as desperate as her wish was to leave this place far behind her, she acknowledged that Alex knew what she was doing when she sent her here.

“And my being a Northern Elf, that never factored in?” Kara asked finally, the final feeling of this being an attempt to force her to face her demons lingering.  


“No.”

Kara huffed but accepted it.

“The rumours are flying up here,” she reported. “Luthor’s bedridden, his son’s taken over command of the castle.”

Alex rubbed her chin, thinking.

“Is he a good leader?” She asked.

“So they say,” Kara shrugged. “I’ll have to judge that myself.”

“And this… witch?”

Kara pinched her nose, the gaggle of earlier rumours from the villagers had been informative and misleading, but there was usually a kernel of truth in them. 

“I don’t know, Alex,” she answered finally. “It sounds like a pile of ridiculous claptrap to me. They’re jumping at shadows. First, it’s the witch in the woods; then it’s the daughter of the lord-“

“The daughter?” Alex cut in, her voice tight. “What, daughter?”

Kara knew that if there was one thing that sent Alex into a frenzy, it was lack of information. All nobles were required to report births in their family to the capital, and even in an information wasteland like the north, Alex should have known if Lionel had a daughter.

“She’s a bastard,” Kara answered quickly, trying to cut Alex off before she dove into a pile of paperwork to disprove the idea that she might have forgotten something. “Lionel seduced a local girl, a long, convoluted tale that bears no repeating until I find out the truth, but he took the child in eventually and raised her.”

Alex still looked annoyed, if the girl had been made a member of the household Lionel had still been required to report her after all, but it was far less a sin then if she had been trueborn. Still, from what Kara had heard of Lillian’s wife tonight, she could guess why the information had never been passed along. 

“They say she’s behind it,” Kara continued. "She’s the witch one second, this same Morgana from a century ago, then she’s a changeling the next. They’re jumping at shadows.”

Kara wasn’t one to disregard magic, not with her heritage, but something of this whole situation smelled rotten to her. Too many clouded trails and rambling rumours that made little sense in the light of day. Still, there was something wrong in this fief. Its history was bloody and angry, and the people who lived here were steeped in it. Kara already doubted that Lionel’s illness had been caused naturally, and she had yet to set foot in the castle.

“There’s a fire under all that smoke,” Alex cautioned. “Be careful, Kara.”

Kara’s heart softened at the concern in Alex’s voice. It wasn’t often these days that she felt like who she had before her people had died, but Alex had wormed her way into her heart quickly, and despite their age differences, Kara had always viewed her as a sister. 

“I will,” she replied gently. “But I can’t speculate anything until I find out more.”

Alex nodded, looking distracted.

“Very well. When do you think you’ll reach the castle?”

“Day after tomorrow,” Kara replied. “I’ll see what I can find out there.”

“Good… good… And Kara? While you’re there, I just…”

Her words trailed off, and Kara felt a sharp clenching in her chest. 

“This isn’t my home, Alex,” she answered her sister’s unspoken words. “It’s just a story.”

Alex didn’t look convinced, but she nodded anyway.

“Report back soon.”

* * *

Kara left late in the morning two days later, her purse a good deal heavier than it had been when she’s arrived. The tavern keeper had been right. Once word spread that there was a minstrel in the village, people had flocked in from the surrounding countryside. The tavern had made a roaring trade, and Kara was kept singing until well past midnight, by which time she had exhausted her repertoire of country ditties and was having to resort to the pretence that people had asked her to replay songs she had already performed. Of course, she could have morphed her style into the elegant training of her youth, playing ethereal songs in her native tongue, but she doubted that would be received at all well. 

Caleb stood by as Kara tightened the girths on her horse, Dreamer, and her pack-pony.

“A good night,” he said. “Call by again when you’re passing south, Linda Danvers.”

He didn’t resent Kara’s leaving; he was a realist enough to know that simple country folk couldn’t afford more than one night of overspending in the tavern.

“I’ll do that,” Kara said, swinging quickly into the saddle. She reached down and clasped the man’s hand. “Thanks, Caleb. I’ll see you then.”

The tavern keeper sniffed the damp air and looked uncertainly at the clouds gathering in the north.

“You’ll do well to keep an eye on the weather. There’s snow in those clouds. If it starts to blizzard take shelter in the trees until it eases. Simple enough to lose your way in a whiteout.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Kara. She glanced at the clouds herself. “Mind you; chances are I’ll reach the castle before it snows.”

She touched her horse with her heel, and the animal moved away, the pack-pony following stolidly behind. Her dog went on ahead, head down and belly low, glancing back continually to be sure Kara was following.

“Maybe so,” said Caleb, more to her than to Kara’s retreating form. But he didn’t sound overly convinced.

Once she knew she was out of the man’s earshot, Kara whispered to her horse and stroked her neck.

_“I’m sorry, Alais. You’re not used to this cold.”_

The horse’s mane shook at her words, and Kara cast a warming spell over them both. Her dog, whose real name was Krypto, not Lucky, didn’t need one. His thick white coat was made for this weather, and being in the north now he was also returning to his homeland. Krypto was the only one to survive in his litter of seven when Kara had found him. His mother had been a _Ráka_, one of the giant wolves native to the northern mountain ranges. They hadn’t been seen outside of the mountains in centuries and as such had become a highly sort after prize for collectors and trophy hunters in the south. Whoever had been brave enough, or stupid enough, to catch his mother had left abandoned and half-dead in the alleys of the capital. Kara guessed she must have been used for dogfighting; after all, there was a lot of money to be made in the underbelly of the city with a prizewinning wolf. But she had lost her last battle, and unaware that she was pregnant, her captor had left her to rot. 

Kara had been drawn to the alley by the sound of whimpers, discovering Krypto nuzzling against his still warm mother and dead littermates. And even though he was only half-breed _Ráka_, he had still been blessed with the gift of long life and had been her companion these past twenty years. 

Running smoothly through the snow as if he had been doing so all his life, Kara followed quickly on her horse. She was barely a third of the way on her journey when the big, fat flakes began to drift down from the sky. She felt the temperature becoming lower and lower; then there was the inexplicable moment when it rose a few degrees, signalling the onset of snow. Then it was falling, without any other warning, without any slow build-up. She pulled her hood up and huddled inside the warmth of her cloak. It wouldn’t do well to be seen riding without it, even though her warming spell rendered it obsolete. It intrigued her how snow falling seemed to deaden all sound, although perhaps this was an illusion, sh thought. It seemed logical to expect such large objects to make noise when they fell to earth-after all; you could hear rai when it fell. Perhaps it was this lack of any falling sound that created the illusion of overall silence. Of course, as the snow on the ground grew deeper, it muffled the sound of his horses’ hoofbeats. There was only the slight squeaking sound of the dry, powdery crystals being compressed with each stride. 

Noticing that the snow under-foot was growing deeper by the minute, she rode on regardless. It was heavy, but nowhere near whiteout conditions and she was confident that she could find her way quickly enough. The surface of the road might be covered, but the way was still clearly visible even to human eyes, cut between the trees as it was. 

From time to time, there was a slithering run as built-up snow on a branch finally became too heavy and slid off onto the ground below. Once, there was a splitting crack as a tree gave way, weakened by the intense cold and the weight of the snow until it sagged drunkenly against its neighbours. Krypto’s head rose at the sound, ears pricked, nose quivering.

_“Easy,” _Kara whispered in elvish, her heart feeling a sudden pang and desire to stop and heal the tree with magic. Something about it being in the north, and her being here too, made her want to. But if she stopped at every broken tree she saw, she would never get to where he was supposed to be. 

Krypto acknowledged her words, shaking the fallen snow from his fur, before stalking forward once more.

Two hours later, she crossed a ridge and there, before her, stood Castle Luthor. It was a thickset, ugly building. The dark of its stone walls seemed black against the pure white snowscape that surrounded it. It had a dark feel to it too, though Kara wondered if she felt that way from intuition or if the rumours from the villagers had seeped past her objectivity. After all, she had never been a fan of the solid castles that humans built, making some execution for the palace in the capital which was built with the aid of the southern elves. 

Riding towards the main gate, Alais’s hooves rang out on the heavy planking of the drawbridge as Kara rode under the portcullis. The hollow sound changed to a sharp clatter as the horses stepped onto the cobbled courtyard. The area was filled with people moving from one place to another, going about their normal day-to-day activities. Kara’s nose wrinkled at the sharp smells that filled her nostrils, the warm press of unwashed bodies, human and animals, wasn’t softened at all by the weather. A few people looked up at her arrival, most balking at the sight of the large dog, but they looked down just as quickly and scurried away. 

Something was missing, she thought. Then she realised there was none of the usual buzz of conversation, no sudden bursts of laughter or raised voices as people greeted companions, sharing a joke or story. The people of this cast were quiet, moving with their eyes cast down, seemingly disinterested in what was going on around them. It was an unfamiliar experience for her. In a remote, isolated place like this, she had fully expected to be greeted eagerly, if not warmly. She looked around curiously but found no one willing to meet or hold her gaze.

It was fear, she realised. People here were living in a land steeped in rumours and suspicion. They battled with orcs and traded with mysterious dwarves along a dangerous border. Their lord had been struck down by a mysterious ailment, and there was a distinct belief among them that it was the work of a witch. Small wonder that they would not show interest in a stranger arriving in their must. She hesitated for a beat, unsure whether or not she should dim-out. Then the question was answered for her as a rotund man, with a look of perpetual worry on her face and wearing a seneschal’s stain and keys around his neck, emerged from the keep. 

“Minstrel, are you?” he asked, pointing to the instrument case Kara had strapped to her pack-pony. It was an abrupt enough greeting, Kara thought, but at least it was a greeting. 

She smiled.

“That’s right, sir. Linda Danvers, from places south, bringing my small measure of pleasure to the castles of the north.”

The man eyed her for a second but seemed to accept her words. Kara knew from her travels that the people of the north viewed her somewhat as an oddity, but were more than willing to take her once they heard her play. The man nodded, his eyes drifting, Kara guessing that he had a lot to distract him.

“We can use some. There’s been precious little to smile about here, I can tell you.”

“Really?” Kara asked. The man glanced up at her appraisingly.

“You’ve heard nothing of events here?” he asked. Kara raised it would be foolish to try to present comparer ignorance of events. An entertainer travelling through the country would have heard the locale gossip-as indeed she had. 

She shrugged.

“Rumours, of course. The countryside is always alive, with them wherever you fo. But I’, used to discounting rumours.”

The rotund man sighed heavily. 

“In this case, you can probably believe most of them,” he said. “And add to them as well. You could hardly exaggerate the satiation here.”

“Then the lord of the castle is truly…” Kara hesitated as the other man looked up warningly.

“If you’ve heard the rumours, you know the situation,” he said quickly. “It’s a subject that’s best not discussed too much.”

“Of course,” Kara replied. She shifted in her safe. A human would be tired now, and she felt that troubled of not, it was time the seneschal showed a little of the standard courtesy. The other man saw the movement and gestured for her to dismount.

Kara nodded, smiling as she swung down from the saddle, stretching her legs and back muscles with slight exaggeration.

“What’s a lass like you doing in the north anyway?”

“You don’t get many minstrels; I take it.”

“Not girl ones from the south, no.”

“Well, I felt like trying my hand at adventure. My da warned me not to go, but well…”

“And has it been all that you expected?”

“I’ll be looking forward to going home, that’s for sure.”

“You can put your horses in the stable. And that dog… well.”

Krypto had been lying on the cobbles watching the conversation. Kara smiled easily, used to people’s wariness by now. Gesturing with her hand, Krypto rolled onto his back with ease, tongue lolling out and tail slapping with deep thuds. Kneeling next to him, she scratched his belly, and her smile widened when his leg started to kick with happiness. 

Looking up at the man, who’s eyes had softened somewhat at the sight of her ministrations. Kara’s felt a flicker of satisfaction in her chest.

No-one could resist a cute dog.

“He assists me in my act,” Kara answered finally.

The man hesitated for a few seconds, before nodding in acceptance.

“Keep him with you then. Close too, I don’t need to be woken in the middle of the night to some chambermaid screaming because she got a fright.”

Kara stifled a comment that it’d be more likely that the man himself would be the one screaming if Krypto snuck upon him.

“You’re lucky that we’re not too crowded at the moment, not that that’s a surprise. So you can have a room to yourself.”

That was an agreeable development. Kara had been expecting to be assigned one of the cordoned off sleeping stalls that lined the annex to most castle great halls. Particularly in winter, when you would typically expect a castle to be crowded. 

“Not too many visitors, then?” She asked, and the man shot his head.

“Just the normal castle folk. And there are few of them than normal,” he answered darkly.

Kara chose not to pursue the matter. She set to loosening the girth straps on the two horses. The seneschal glanced around her.

“Forgive me if I leave you to it,” he said. “That firewood will never get stacked if I don't see to it myself. Stabled are over that way.” He gestured to the right of the courtyard. “Once you’ve got your horses settled, ask in the castle for Mistress Agatha- she’s the housekeeper. Tell her I said you were to have one of the tower rooms on level three. My name’s Agramond, by the way.”

Kara nodded her thanks. “Mistress Agatha,” she repeated. 

The man was already running away, yelling at two of the castle worked who were slowly staking cut firewood in one corner. 

“Come on, Alais,” said Kara. “Let’s find you a bed.”

The Ranger horse’s ears pricked at the sound of his name, the packhorse, placid and unimaginative, followed him docilely as Will led the way to the stables. 

The stable-master was as distracted as the seneschal, hastily assigning Kara two stalls to place the horses in which Kara did dutifully and gentling. Removing her tack and gear and storing the excess in the chest that was provided, before she rubbed them both down. Most of the other horses in the stables were tall, healthy battle horses, not unusual for a castle and garrison of this size, which made her curious why when the rest of the stalls were near full, there was a gap of one on each side of a darkened stall. Tuning her ears, she could hear the sound of an agitated animal within, pawing at the ground anxiously even though he had been cordoned off.

Kara had always been drawn to animals, even more then the average for her race, so it was natural for her to wander slowly in the direction of the stall after her horses had been cared for. 

She was barely a metre away from it, seeing the body of the animal shrouded in the dark when it ran forward with a cry as if to rush her. Only hinder by the stall door, he reared as best he could and let out a loud and panicked whinny. Kara raised her hands gently in surrender, her eyes tracking the animals body and wincing when she saw the half-healed, but deep, gouges in his chest and the mud and dirt clinging to his form. 

The stable master, who had been berating a nearby stablehand, rushed over to her at the sounds. 

“That horse is half-mad, lass,” he called to her, waving off the concern on her face. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“What happened to him?” She asked quietly, not looking away from the animal.

  
“He’s m’ lord’s horse. Was with him the day he was struck down. Heard tell that m’lord drove him wild, out of control, ran him right into the raised stakes in the moat.”

Kara didn’t respond, just continued to watch the horses wide-blown eyes, until the man let out a sound of annoyance and rushed away as quickly as he’d come. She waited quietly, patiently for several minutes, listening to the horses breathing and heart rate while he continued to eye her. 

Slowly, she reached out for the latch on the stall door.

_“Calm, my friend,” _she called softly in elvish, the language of the earth instantly relaxing the horse's muscles.

The door opened, she slipped in slowly, smiling when the horses didn’t move away from her.

_“Calm,” _she continued. "_You’re safe now.”_

She held out her hand low, offering it to him. There were a few more moments of quiet before the horse took a soft step forward. Kara smiled encouragingly.

_“Easy… gentle,” _she breathed, waiting until the horse was a foot away._ “You’re safe… don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”_

The horse's breath steamed in the air, before gently, he lowered his head and allowed her to scratch his head and stroke his mud-caked neck. Whatever had happened to strike Lionel down had led to the damage done to his horse, and it had been so traumatised by the experience that nobody had been able to clean him properly. Looking at the half-healed wounds, she extended a silent finger of magic toward them, letting the tissue heal below the skin, leaving the surface damage so that his recovery wouldn’t be questioned. She shifted her magic out next towards his mind, soothing his hurt and pain and taking some of it away and into herself. It was advanced magic, and she usually loathed to interfere with the emotions or thoughts of any living creature, but this horse had suffered enough to be left in this state. 

He whined long and slow, leaning into her touch.

“His name is Larna,” a voice sounded out behind her. “He was my father’s horse.”

Kara turned her head, taking in the figure in the doorway.

So this was her, the mysterious bastard daughter. Kara grew annoyed immediately that she had been caught out speaking elvish so quickly, especially by a person who was a person of interest in her investigation.

Still, there was no chance in changing that now.

_“Larna… your name is regal,_” Kara finished before she left him with a final pat and thrust of strength before she cut off the magical connection and left the stall. The girl, who she realised she had never learnt the name of, stepped out of her way and allowed her to exit. 

“I’ve heard of the magic of the elven tongue,” the woman continued when Kara closed the latch. “But I would not have looked for it from a minstrel. You speak as one of their own.”

Kara frowned, before turning to look at the girl properly in the light.

Her heart caught in her throat, the striking green eyes sparking a deep and painful memory in her chest. The rumours had been correct about her; she was beautiful. Pale as a silver moon, and with tumbling black hair that curled and danced around her shoulders. She didn’t carry herself like a reclusive figure, but maybe that was because Kara had assumed that she would be unconfident in her bearing. It took Kara all of her concentration to focus on the present conversation versus the memory the colour of her eyes brought her back to. But they were guarded, wary, and full of intelligence. Kara knew she would have trouble fooling this one. For one, she already knew who she was, and while gossip does travel fast, in a castle where the lord was supposedly a victim of witchcraft, the presence of a minstrel should cause little fuss. 

And not so quickly.

“I was raised in the south… The old words slip their way in… my lady,” Kara breathed out demurely, given the girl her deference.

The girl’s guarded face flickered with some pained emotion, interest shifting to disinterest, but it was gone as quickly as it had arrived, slipping back into blankness.

“Yes, I suppose they would,” she answered airily as if she was above their interaction. “My advice? Don’t let anyone here know. They prefer to treat all the fae folk as bad bedtime stories. They wouldn’t take too kindly on elvish being spoken.”

Kara was rapidly scrambling to form an opinion of the woman in front of her, trying to determine whether the disdainful tone and attitude was an act or real, and whether or not it was directed at the fae folk themselves or people’s attitudes towards them.  


“Are you so afraid of them, my lady?”

The girl’s face tightened at her words, and her cheeks flushed with anger. She was staring at Kara with enough coldness to make her feel like she wasn’t worthy of being in her presence.

Bastard or not, this one carried herself like a queen.

“We fight with the orcs along the border, we fear the dwarves for all their power in the mountains, the winters grow colder every year,” she rounded out. “What isn’t there to be afraid of? The elves cursed this land when they left.”

The bitter words left a bad taste in Kara’s mouth, even though she was used to hearing endless casual slurs and lies about her race, for some reason coming from this girl’s mouth she felt anger in her heart.

“When they were forced to, you mean, my lady.”

Kara cursed herself for saying it, but the resentment in the woman’s face shifted to something else. Looking over Kara carefully now, as if she was seeing her for the first time. The interest that had died so quickly in her eyes flared once more.

“Is that what they say in the south?”

Kara heard the keenness, the challenge in the woman’s voice. The thrill in her eyes. Understanding shifted in her when she realised that the best way to retain contact and interest in this girl was by reacting to her. And if she behaved dutifully and demurely as her cover might suggest, she would lose this one quickly. And given her supposedly reclusive nature and closeness to the situation… Kara thought for a second, weighing her options before she risked it. 

“I have a feeling,” she answered, eyes locking intensely with the girls. “That you would know exactly what it is they say, my lady.”

She had her. The second she said it Kara realised that she had her in the palm of her hand. Kara had walked amongst humans for long enough to recognise attraction. The flushed features, the wildly beating heart, the stuttered breath. 

And in this girl, no matter how well she maintained a steady facade, she screamed it.

“It was nice to have met you, minstrel,” the girl answered her words, looking slightly uncertain now. “I would wish to hear you play, but sadly, I take my meals in my room.”

She wanted to retreat, to flee. To hide and calm herself. But if she was interested in Kara, it could fast track this entire mission, and hopefully, she would be able to clean up the mess and be on her way back south and out of this haunted land. 

“You could always request a private audience… my lady.” Her lips curled into a crooked grin, her eyebrow arched, and she didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath or the way that the girl’s eyes tracked her face.

“Tell me your name, minstrel,” the girl asked quietly.

“Linda, my lady,” Kara answered freely. “Linda Danvers.”

There was another flicker, but this time Kara wasn’t quick enough to catch it.

“Danvers?”

There was something in her tone that Kara didn’t like. As if it struck too close to home.

“Not a common name in the north, my lady?” She asked easily.

The corners of the girl’s eyes tightened, but she didn’t otherwise react.

“No… not at all,” she answered, before giving Kara a departing nod. “Well met, Linda Danvers.”

She turned on her heel to leave, but Kara still called out a reply despite the snub.

“It was an honour to meet you, too, my lady.”

The retreating back hesitated, her head turning to answer over her shoulder.

“My name’s Lena.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, well for all the regulars I sincerely apologise. I couldn't stop myself. I have no self-control. Don't judge me too harshly. Don't expect regular updates folks, I'm slinking back onto my rotation of other fics for now. 
> 
> That being said... comments anyone? I really do like them! Or come and berate me on Tumblr @assumingminds19


	2. Shadows in the Wood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the fantastic thing is I haven't died. Chapter two, for your pleasure.

Kara left the stables, intrigued. Her first interaction with a player in the tale of mystery having been the person she’d thought would be the most difficult to pin down had been interesting, to say the least. There was something about the girl, something the rumours that Caleb had regurgitated to her had been unable to capture. She carried darkness, yes, but it mixed with something else, something raw and wild. As if she were a caged beast dying to be set free upon the world.

Cataloguing it away to be mulled over later, Kara went to find the housekeeper. Like most women of her calling, she was a stoutly built, capable sort. She was polite enough, Kara thought, but she had the same air of distraction as the seneschal. She showed Kara to her room- fairly standard accommodation for a castle of this size. The floors and walls were stone, the ceiling timber. There was a narrow window, fitted with a frame cover in a translucent hide that allowed a half-light to filter through. A wooden shutter was available for the severe weather. A small fireplace warmed the room, and there was a bed in a curtained off alcove. Several wooden seats and a small floor rug completed the home comforts. A washstand was on a small wooden table against the curved wall. Despite her years, Kara hadn’t spent a significant amount of time sleeping in tower rooms, and she realised now, looking around, that it could be no easy task finding furniture to fit a place where the greater part of the wall was semicircular.

Mistress Barry glanced down at the instrument case as she set it down. 

“Play the lute, do you?” She asked.

“It’s not a-“

“Whatever. I imagine you’ll be playing tonight?”

“Why not?” She said expansively. “It’s a fine night for music and laughter, after all.”

“Precious little laughter you’ll find here,” she said dourly/ “Although I dare say we could use some music.”

“And on that cheery note, she moved to the door. 

“If you need anything, ask one of the serving girls. But don’t you get to gossiping with them about your fancy bow and wolf,” she added darkly, eyeing the aforementioned weapon and Krypto as he lounged next to the fireplace. “I don’t need the whole castle fluttering with notions above their stations. No sensible girl ought to have a weapon and you’d do well to remember that.”

Only because they’d be likely to pincushion you, Kara thought to herself as she left the room. Even after all these years living amongst humans, she could never quite grasp why some people seemed so insistent in forcing their ideas of what a girl should and shouldn’t be on others.

She grimaced at Krypto, whose eyes were tracking her intently.

“Friendly place, eh, boy?” She said. 

The dog thumped his tail at the sound of her voice.

* * *

Kara entertained the idea of nosing around the castle briefly, but decided given the heightened tenseness, if she were spotted the sight of a stranger wandering the dark halls would only raise alarms and whispers. Better to ingrate herself with the occupants first as a friendly face before she did any snooping.

The evening meal in the dining hall of the castle was a sombre affair, presided over by Lord Lionel’s wife, Lillian. 

She was a woman of medium height, perhaps fifty years of age, Kara thought - although her lean figure betrayed a sense of self-discipline that was often lacking in the middle-aged female courtiers of the south. She was dressed simply and elegantly in black, the mourning colour noted by Kara. Her husband wasn’t dead yet, after all, even if he seemed to be well on his way. Her mood seemed to match the colour of her clothes. She had a pale complexion, with the look of a woman who spent the greater part of her time indoors. Her iciness seemed to radiate and fill all corners of the room, and despite the roaring fires Kara couldn’t help but think she’d have found more cheer in a graveyard than in this place. Altogether, not the type of women Kara would want to have their anger or attention directed at. Kara wondered where the son of the Lord was, the head place at the table left empty next to the lady as people settled in their seats. As the place filled up, Kara also noted with interest that no chair was left vacant for the daughter, even though she recalled that Lena had mentioned that she took her meals in her rooms. Eyes flickering back to Lillian, Caleb the innkeeper’s words rang through her head about the woman’s attitude toward the girl and wondered if her lack of attendance was by choice or required. 

Lillian made no comment or acknowledgement of Kara’s presence as she sat. As was the custom, the tables were arranged in the form of a T, with Lady Lillian and her companions, at the crosspiece. The rest of the diners were seated at the table that made up the stem of the T, in descending order of importance. Kara was placed a little more than halfway up the stem. As a Ranger, she would usually be accorded a seat at the head table, and she’d had to resist the automatic urge to head toward it. Mistress Barry, supervising the serving go the meal, indicated her place at the table and she found herself seated with several of the lower-ranking Craft-masters and their wives. No one spoke to her. But then, she realised, they didn’t speak to one another either, other than muttered requests for condiments and dished to be passed. 

As usual, she silently cursed the flamboyant minstrel’s outfit she wore, with it’s full, flowing sleeves. More than once she managed to trail them in the gravy of passing dished. The standard of the food served matched the overall atmosphere - a plain mutton stew, with a somewhat chewy venison roast and platters of stingy boiled vegetables that seemed to have come from prolonged storage in the cellars. The wine was sharp, to put it kindly, but it didn’t seem to bother her dinner companions, who gestured urgently for refills whenever the serving girl with the wine jug was nearby. It seemed to be the only time animation crept into their manner, she thought wryly. 

The meal, without conversation or diversion of any kind, was soon finished. The seneschal left his seat and spoke quietly into Lillian’s ear. The lady of the castle listened, grimaced slightly, then looked down the table until she picked out Kara.

“I believe we are privileged to have an entertainer with us,” she said.

If she felt privileged, the tone of her voice certainly didn’t betray it. There was a weary acceptance of the inevitable and an unmistakable air of disinterest and slight disgust evident in her words. Kara, however, chose to ignore the insulting delivery of the introduction. She stood and moved slightly away from the table to deliver an ornate bow, seep and accompanied with much flourishing. Then she smiled widely at last. 

“If it pleases, my lady,” she said. “I am a humble minstrel with songs of love, laughter and adventure to share with you.”

Lillian sighed deeply. 

“I very much doubt that it will please me in any way,” she said. Her voice was sardonic and slightly grating. And while it dripped with the same air of superiority that her step-daughter maintained, it had none of the hidden interest or emotion. Altogether, Kara’s initial thoughts were that the lady of the castle was a most unpleasant specimen, with little saving graces evident thus far.

Though, she supposed, the formation of quick assumptions were always bound to bias investigations, and she couldn’t let herself fall down that path. 

“I supposed you have the usual repertories of country jogs, folk songs and doggerel to put before us?” She continued. 

Kara thought the best answer was to bow once more.

“My lady,” she said, checking her annoyance at being spoken to in such a way and keeping her eyes down.

“No faint chance that you might know something of the classics? Some of the greater music?” Lillian asked, her tone making it evident that she knew the answer would be in the negative.

Kara smiled again, resisting the urge to burst into the first movement of Saprival’s _Summer Odes and Interpretations. _Kara had spent a large portion of her youth in her home forests immersed in music, as all her people were. She knew songs in elvish that could make listeners cry freely at the first playing, and had since spent her life walking amongst humans also learning the so-called great pieces of music their people had to offer The fact that she had been born before some of them made Lillian’s snobbish attempt to proclaim them great made Kara’s blood boil. In her life, she had found that the simplest song sung by a passionate heart was far more beautiful than the best piece of music composed by a master. Of course, the fact that her musical training and knowledge was undoubtedly superior to the arrogant toad before her would undoubtedly blow her cover. Playing into people’s initial opinions of yourself had the dual effect of ensuring that they didn’t question your presence further and helped their true personally came to bear.

“I regret, my lady, that I am not classically trained, “ she said, around the fixed smile. 

Lillian waved a dismissive hand. 

“As do I,” she said slowly. “Well then, I supposed we must endure the inevitable. Perhaps my people will find some enjoyment in your performance.”

Not likely after that introduction_, _thought Kara, as she passed the strap of her instrument over her head. She hesitated, looking around the room, taking in the stolid expressions of all present. 

I think I’m about to learn what it is like to die on stage, she thought to herself, as she struck up the opening bars of _Say My Name, _a lively reel from the South. If was a safe song for her, one that she knew even in these cold places it would have travelled to, and the opening passage was simple but stirring. As much as it pained her to do so, she played it without flair or personality, abandoning the melody line and strumming the chords instead, hoping to lull the lady into a false sense of satisfaction at her apparent curate assessment of Kara’s abilities. She ploughed doggedly through the song, making mistakes and missing notes. She finished with a thwarted note on the bass string that summed up the ineptitude of the total performance.

Stony silence greeted her for what seemed like minutes and Kara tried to draw some happiness from the fact that she had succeeded in her way. Then, from the back of the hall came the sound of ringing applause.

Kara turned to look. A group of five men, dressed in hunting clothes, had entered the hall as she sang. Now they applauded, encouraged by the one who was their leader. Stocky and muscular, he had a square, open face and a wide grin. He moved down the hall now towards Kara, continuing to clap as he moved closer. Then he held out his hand in getting.

“Well done, minstrel, particularly in view of the frosty reception you’ve been given!”

Kara took the hand that was offered, firm, hard and callused. Kara knew that feeling. It was the hand of a warrior, the calluses being the result of years of weapons practice. 

“What’s your name, minstrel?” He asked.

Kara looked him over quickly. He was a tall man and looked to be in his thirties. A thick, but well-groomed beard lined his jaw and mouth, but his head was as bald as an egg. He had lively green eyes that Kara instantly placed with Lena, and she guessed quickly who the man was. His four companions stood slightly behind him, all warriors as well, Kara noted. 

“Linda Danvers, my lord.” The quality of the man’s clothing left her in no doubt that this was the correct address. The title was greeted with laughter, however.

“No need for ceremony here, Linda Danvers. Lex is the name. Lord Alexander perhaps on formal occasions, but Lex is good enough any other time.” 

His smile quirked with interest as he looked Kara over too.

“I must confess, I have never met a female minstrel before. I suppose you hail from the south?”

Kara nodded.

“Yes, my lord, though I do travel with no one particular place to call home.”

Lex’s smile widened. 

“Well, it is always good to have a southern breeze to blow some fresh air through these cold halls, and as long as you stay here, be assured to call Castle Luthor your home.”

He turned to the top table, raising his voice as he addressed Lillian.

“Apologise for our late arrival, mother. I trust there are some scraps of food still left for us?”

Kara’s gaze flickered between them, assessing Lex closer. He was Lionel’s son and heir, and by all reports was the one holding the castle together. He was said to be a capable warrior and a good leader. And if first impressions were anything to go by, he was a different kettle of fish to his mother and sister. 

Three members of the same family and all so different Kara thought, musing over the first meetings. 

Lillian was speaking now, the disapproval in her voice unmistakable. 

“The hall is used to your ill-mannered late arrivals by now, my son,” she said.

Lex looked back at Kara and gave her a conspiratorial grin, accompanied by a theatrical raising of the eyebrows. 

“If you’ll take your place, I’ll have the servants bring food,” Lillian continued, gesturing to the empty chair at the head of the table for her son to sit in. But Lex waved the suggestion aside. 

“Let’s have places set here,” he answered, indicating the table close by Kara. “We’ll eat while we enjoy some music from Linda Danvers. It’s about time some fun filled these dowdy old walls.,” he added, with a glint in his eye.

“Let’s hear something lively, Linda! Do you know _Smelly Sam _by any chance?”

“Indeed I do,” Kara replied, the bawdy song was often sung amongst sailors and soldiers, and certainly wasn’t called for in formal settings, but if that was what the lord of the castle wanted to be sung, Kara would only be too happy to oblige. After all, it would probably have the bonus of annoying Lillian. 

It was amazing what a difference a small group of listeners could make. As she began the rippling melody, her fingers were sure and confident once more, and she relaxed in the knowledge that she could play well now once more. Lex and his friends stamped and clapped along, joining in the chorus - and, gradually, so did the others in the room. 

Not his mother, of course. As the applause for the song dies away, Kara heard the noise of a chair scraping back at the hight table. She glanced around to see the castle’s lady leaving by a side door, her face set in a scowl. 

It interested Kara that the woman would have such a disapproving reaction to her son’s upbeat attitude, but she filed that away along with her other hoarded pieces of information.

“Well, that lightened the mood!” Lex chirped. Kara not sure if he was referring to the song of his mother’s departure. “Let’s have another, what do you all say?”  


He looked around the table at his companions. For a moment there was little response from any of them. Lex leaned forward, his smile widened, and he spoke louder. 

“I said, let’s have another. What do you all say?”

There was a sudden surge of enthusiasm as they chorused their agreement. Kara regarded them with some surprise. Lex seemed to be extremely popular among his followers. Whatever he wanted, they seemed happy enough to go along with. This should go some way to settling Alex’s fear that a firm hand wasn’t on the tiller at Castle Luthor, even with Lionel out of commission. But Kara had yet to see the man in any serious action beyond these dining room halls and reserved her judgment. 

She grinned around her regardless, flexing her fingers experimentally before she struck up a tune.

* * *

The evening continued for another hour and a half. Then, people began drifting off to their beds. Kara, satisfied with her night's work, packed her instrument away and was ready to follow them when Lex stopped her with a press of a warm flask into her hand.

“Come! Sit with me, Linda Danvers and tell me a tale from your life.”

Kara took the drink and sat across from the smiling man, nursing it gently before taking a small sip. 

“I’m afraid, my lord, that there’s little to my life that is interesting to comment on,” she replied. “The most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me was when I left the farm.”

“Surely that can’t be true,” the man replied, his eyes sparkling. “A woman of your age and skill, travelling alone along dangerous roads must have a tale or two to speak of!”

“You have me at a disadvantage, my lord,” she answered softly. “The only thing I can recall occurred last week when I happened upon a man in an inn, whose beard was so magnificent I thought him kin of a bear.”

Lex threw back his head in an uproarious laugh at her words, and when his chuckles subsided, he wiped tears from his eyes.

“Ah, but it is good to have you with us, Linda.”

His mirth slowly died, and a serious look entered his face.

“I’m glad to see you here, Linda Danvers, because you bring life back to these halls,” he said in a lowered voice. “People here need some diversion from their troubles. They get precious little here, ever since my father…”

His words seemed to fail him as a far off look entered his eyes. Kara felt sympathy fill her ever so slightly. It wasn’t often that she allowed herself to get to involved emotionally with human affairs, she had learnt the lesson to remain detached a long time ago, but it was impossible to divorce herself entirely. And there was something about this tension-filled place that had her feeling slightly raw herself. Maybe it was the ghosts of ancestors in these lands, or simply the feeling of low panic that radiated from all the people, but her thoughts weren’t entirely her own here.

The man’s eyes snapped back to her’s finally in Kara’s silence, a plastered smile on his face. 

“Let me know if there's anything you need while you’re with us.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Kara began, but the man’s eyebrow arched and she amended the statement. “Lex, then. I’ll do whatever I can to raise the people’s spirits.” 

Lex’s ready grin lit up again.

“I’m sure you will. Remember, if you need anything, just ask.”

And with that, he stood from the table and left Kara alone in the dining hall. Suddenly tired wth the after her music-filled night, Kara trudged slowly up the stairs to her room. Krypto greeted her with a questioning looks and the usual thumping of his tail.

“Not a bad night in the end,” she told him. “Interesting, to say the least. You can work with me tomorrow and give me your opinion.”

Krypto didn’t answer, as always even though he was used to her ramblings, but dipped his nose to his paws and fixed his gaze on her. Those steady brown eyes held an unmistakable message for her.

“You don’t, do you?” she said hopefully. “Surely you could wait until morning.”

The eyes were unwavering, and she sighed softly. She buckled on her knives and pulled her cloak around her shoulders. It would suit her cover very well if she ran around outside without it.

“All right,” she told her dog. “Let’s go.”

Krypto padded obediently behind her as she made her way for the stairs and not the castle courtyard. It was a cold, sea night, with a definite hint of frost in the air. Above here, the stars blazed down, while a quarter moon hung low in the east. Revived by the cold air, she breathed deeply as Kara looked around the courtyard. There was enough light from the stars and moon to throw definite shadows across the yard, and it occurred to her that this might be as good a time as any to look around the vicinity. The thin powdering of fresh snow n the cobbled squeaked under her boots as she made her way to the postern gate beside the massive portcullis. It must have snowed while she was in the dining hall, she realised, as the sky was now almost completely clear. One of the sentries stopped her, and she made her way into the pst beside the gate. 

“Where are you off to then, lass?” He asked, his manner neither friendly or unfriendly. 

Kara shrugged. 

“Can’t sleep,” she said. Then, gesturing to the dog, “and he’s always up for a walk.”

The sentry raised an eyebrow at her, eyeing Krypto with curiosity, eyes tracing over his humongous figure. After his gaze landed on her, tracing her figure and lingering on her blades sceptically. Kara felt herself slip back into boredom. 

“This is not a good place to go walking at night,” he said. “But if you must go, you’d be best to stay away from De’eoh Forest.”

“De’eoh Forest?” Kara said, assuming a slightly amused, flippant tone. “Isn't that where the ghouls and ghosts gather?” 

She smiled cheerfully at the senate to let him know that such superstitions meant little to her.

The sentry shook his head.

“Make fun of it if you like. But a wise person would give it a wide berth.”

“Well then, perhaps I will,” Kara answered, sounding totally insincere. “Where is it exactly, so that I can make sure I stay away from it?” 

There was a long pause whole the soldier looked at her, recognising her disbelief and bridling slightly at the ridicule underlying the minstrel’s words. Kara could practically see his brain churning, mulling over the consequences of putting her in her place versus letting her risk her safety.

Finally, he pointed to his left.

“It’s that way,” he answered, his voice laced with anger. “Abut a kilometre. And you’ll know it when you see it, believe me. I’ll let the sentry on the wall know you’ve gone out,” he added, “in case you make it back.”

Kara hid her smile. The sentry felt like he'd had the last word, opening the small stern gates beside the portcullis, allowing Kara and her dog to slip through. The door banged shut behind them, and Kara heard the bolts sighing home almost immediately. In country like this, one didn’t leave gates open any longer than necessary once the sun was down. For the same reason, the massive drawbridge was up. It wouldn’t be lowered again till after sunrise. But there was a narrow two-plank access bridge along the moat that protected the castle. Will stepped across it quickly, Krypto following with grace despite his size. Krypto never seemed to have an issue with unsteady footing. She looked back at the castle, a crouching black mass above her. She could see one of two dark shapes moving on the battlements and realised these would be the night guards. Resisting the temptation to wave, she struck out in the direction the sentry had indicated. Krypto followed her then, as she snapped her fingers and whispered under her breath, a trained habit to hide her elvish words.

_“Free.”_

Krypto quested ahead, running in a wide arc some twenty metres ahead of her, stopping and sniffing at new scents, cocking an ear at new sounds but continually checking back to make sure Kara was following. There was a wild beauty to the countryside under its cover of snow. The road itself held only the thin dusting that had fallen that night. But in the fields and trees beside the road, the snow still lay thick and heavy from previous falls. Kara had always loved the sight of a snow-cape at night, and witnessing them rarely in the south, a part of her revelled in the sight. 

Strange, she thought, that she was so attracted to it considering its cause. It _had_ been the human’s arrival that had caused the land to cry and freeze as if did. The leaving of elf-kind magic had led to the great freeze, the withdrawal causing the flowers and plants to wither and the sun to dim. But here she was, finally back in their ancient land, and she felt attracted to the first sign of her people’s fall. 

She walked through it, musing slightly under the moon, thinking over the characters of Lady Lillian, Lord Lex and by far the most mysterious of them all, Lena the Ill-Born as the townsfolk had christened her. 

She’d heard Kara speaking elvish, which was cause enough for alarm. Hopefully, she had managed to smooth it over, playing on the slight attraction she had picked up on. Kara was still annoyed at herself for the slip, almost betraying herself before she’d even managed serious reconnaissance. But there was something else about the girl that stopped her from being too worried. Lena had been intrigued by her ability, but penetrating the arrogant and standoffish air she wore with strong familiarity, there was something else there. A desire for recognition and loneliness. Altogether, a lonely soul who held secrets close to her chest. 

Again, for what millionth time, Kara chastised herself for relying on first impressions. Her tutors of old had often chastised her for it, and yet here she was still treading the same pathways in her mind time and time again. An over intense focus on details, while a thick carpet clouded the entire picture in her mind. She could practically hear her aunt’s voice in her ear, chiding her for being hasty after she burnt off her eyebrows in an attempt at a fire spell. 

_Magic and recklessness either produce brilliance or injury, Kara. Tread lightly with spells you don’t understand. _

Kara felt the familiar sting that echoed memories of her family caused, along with a bitter longing for the time that had been stolen from her. 

She shook it off, taking a deep breath of cold air, trying to drag her mind back to the objective at hand. Gradually, the open countryside and the cleared fields began to give way as trees and bushes encroached closer to the road. It was darker here, without the fields and their cover of snow to reflect the ambient light and Kara felt a sense of the world pressing in on her. 

Crowding her.

Watching her. 

She loosened her larger blade in its sheath and touched her throwing knife, an eerie feeling ran across her, raising the hair on her arms and she stopped her she stood, sharp eyes combing through the darkness. She’d had these feeling before as if there was a sudden threat nearby, but she couldn’t see or hear anything. Maybe it was just good sense, all the justifications she had been giving to all those who had questioned her about her weapons, to hold weapons close in a dangerous part of the countryside. She noticed that Krypto’s questing had fallen into a narrower arc than before. He preferred the clear ground as well.

Despite the warning senses in her mind, Kara reasoned that her dog would know if any ambush were ahead of them and give her a warning, so she continued until finally, she found herself at De’eoh Forest.

It loomed in the darkness, no other word for it. The trees here were taller, darker and more closely packed. The shadows under them were dense and impenetrable. Brooding, dark and seemed determined to conceal its secrets from strangers.

The sentry had been right, she thought. Kara did know it when she saw it. 

But there was something else to these trees, she could feel it. A familiarity that stretched beyond her memory, and a deep sadness that had culminated in its overall sinister feel. Reaching out, she touched the knotted bark of a tree and flung her hand back as if she had been stung. 

All trees had memories and emotions if you looked hard enough, but most that she encountered held muted feelings, impressions really, deeper depending on how old were. And they didn’t provoke words so much as colours, sparking and fizzing in her mind. Even the trees she had grown up in, steeped in magic as they were, felt nothing like this. 

These trees talked of blood, pain and impending doom as if a war was being conducted within them at this very second. And bubbling right underneath their bark, pounding fear and a need to lash out violently. 

Kara frowned, and her sense of concern grew. Walking slowly along the edge of the trees, clicking her fingers once to bring Krypto back beside her. His ears were cocked, she realised, and his eyes swept from her to the trees and back again as if he sensed where her attention was focused. 

Then his hackles went up, and a deep, low growl vibrated out of his chest, his gaze riveted to one side. Kara looked in that direction but for the moment saw nothing through the tangle of trees and undergrowth. Then she dropped into a crouch and for a moment saw a faint red glow moving among the shadows, just for a moment.

Then it was gone.

She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck once more as she straightened. Shaking her head, she laughed softly.

“It’s a light,” she told herself. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Krypto growled once again, and this time Kara saw the movement form the corn of her eye. A blue glow this time - that seemed to fare briefly in the tops of the trees and then was gone. But the time she has her full gaze on it, it had vanished. She wasn’t even sure that she had seen anything, but Krypto’s behaviour confirmed that she had. Then the red flow was back once more and gone again before she could focus on it. This time it was in a part of the wood, several hundred metres from where it had first appeared. Kara felt her hear skip once, and she dropped her hand to her blade’s pommel. 

“Come on, boy,” she said to the dog. “ There must be a path into this wood somewhere.”

She found one some thirty metres further along. It was narrow and twisting, with barely enough room for one man. Still, she didn’t want to waste any more time. A sense of angry impatience filled her, and a sharp need to finish whatever this was and quickly. She went forward into the trees, Krypto moving a pace ahead of her, head down and nose to the ground. 

After twenty steps, she looked behind her and could no longer see her way out of the tres. The path twisted so much and the undergrowth so closely that her world had become confined to a space of a few metres. She counted on, her hand still on her hilt. Years of training meant that she now moved with virtually no sound, and now she began instinctively to use the shadow patterns as ever for her movement. There was no further sign of lights among the trees. Perhaps, she thought, the light-bearers had been scared off when she entered the wood. The thought made her feel a little more relaxed. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one in these trees feeling nervous. She smiled at the thought and moved on. 

Then the whispering started. 

It was right at the limit of her hearing, and she strained her highly tuned ears, not entirely sure she could hear anything. Then, she thought that it was the wind through the leaves - except there was no movement, no wind. It was an almost imperceptible susurration that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. She looked at Krypto. He had stopped, one forepaw raised, head cocked to one side, listening. The sound must be there then, but it was impossible to determine where it came from, and that made it impossible to make out whether it was voices or just a sound. It ebbed and flowed at the very edge of her senses, sometimes drowned by the accelerated sound of her heartbeat, sometimes becoming almost clear, almost comprehensible. And then, in the middle of the indeterminate muttering, she began to make out individual words.

Unpleastentaly evocative words. Once, she thought she heard a voice say, _pain_. And the muttering died until she heard the word, or thought she almost heard it, _death_. 

_ Suffering. Darkness. Terror. _

Then more meaningless whispering.

It was as if the trees were talking.

She looked at Krypto again. He remained alert as before but the actual words, of course, held no meaning for him. He was reacting only to the sound. Her mind flashed with a million thought, trying to remember the last time she has felt this unsettled, and unable to recall a point even in the past decade. In a lifetime of stalking, sneaking, fighting and hidden magic, this felt… different. 

She took a deep breath; her blade made a soft hiss as it slid from its oiled scabbard and she spoke, clearly and firmly, to the shadows around her.

“Steel.”

The whispering stopped.

Krypto looked at her, his tail wagged once and his hackled lowered, and Kara felt better. 

_Face your fears, and most often than not they will fade like mist in the sunshine. _

Astra’s voice in her mind once more.

Whispering and words were one thing, she thought. The razor-sharp, heavy blade was another. More real and more compelling. 

And altogether more dangerous. 

“Lead on, Krypto. Let’s find the source of these muttering.” She gestured for the animal to continue. She followed a few steps behind him, confident in her ability to sense danger. 

It was just as well she let him lead. Otherwise, she might have walked straight into the black waters of the mere that suddenly appeared as they rounded a bend. The path skirted its edge to the right. Set among the trees, it was an expanse of black water thirty metres across. At its edge, the trees trailed creepers into the water and leaned over to meet each other, some so tall that they nearly touched hands with their opposite neighbours- so that there was clear sky only above the centre of the lake. 

Vapour rose from the water’s surface, twisting in wreaths of fine mist that dissipated as it rose to the trees and bubbles broke the surface where rotting vegetation lay below. Or where some large creature breathed, she thought. On the far side for the water, opposite where she stopped, the mist seemed to be thicker, forming what was almost a curtain. She stopped to stagy the phenomenon wondering why the fog should be thicker in that once spot. Krypto sank to his belly, watching her intently, ready to move off it she started walking again. Then, in a heart-stopping moment of fear, a giant figure loomed out of the mist, touring hight above the mere, seeming to rise from the black water. 

It happened so quickly, one moment there was nothing. Then, in the black of an eye, the future was there, fully formed. Huge and menacing, black against the mist, a shadow figure of a giant man in ancient, spiked armour, with a massive winged helmet on its head, two horns were curling out. It must have been twelve metres high; she thought as she stood, rooted to the spot with a gaping mouth. The helmet was a full-faces design, but where the eyeholes pierced it, there was a space. The figure seemed to shiver slightly, and for once moment, she thought it was moving towards her. Then she realised it was merely the movement of the mist curtain. Kara’s heart hammered inside her ribs, and her mouth wasn’t dry, but it wasn’t fear she felt.

It towered, unmoving apart from the slight quivering of the mist. The empty eyeholes smelled to seek her out. Then she heard the voice. It was deep and seemed t echo around the black lake as if she heard it in some vast cavern rather than the open woods. 

“Beware, human!” It boomed. “Do not awaken the shade of the Superman. Leave this place now while you are still able!”

Krypto sprang to his feet at the sound of the massive voice. A growl rumbled in his throat, and Kara quieted him in a voice that ran with a heartache.

“Still, boy!” she croaked, and the growling stopped. 

But she could see the ruff around his neck raised in a primal reaction of either anger of fear. She could feel the shiver running over her entire body at the sight. Across the lake, the mist seemed to thicken, and the figure seemed to grow more and more substantial as if it were drawing from the power of the mist. This time, when it spoke, the voice was even louder than before.

“Go now while I grant you the chance! Leave!”

The final word echoed around the mere, but Kara didn’t move an inch, her gaze still locked on the figure. The style of the armour it wore, the horns, and the three-fingered hands instead of five.

_“You are no fae.”_

Her elvish words were spat and angry, feeling violated and vulnerable all at once. And just like that, in an instant, like a candle extinguished, the image was gone. The absence of it plunged the forest into darkness and unnatural silence. There was no movement in from the wind, or the shuffling of forest animals. 

As if everything had died. 

Kara’s jaw worked, unsure of herself and what to do for a brief second when her heart steadied once more, and she sank to the ground. Taking a deep breath, she reached with her fingers for an exposed root. Hovering her hand above it, Kara closed her mind and attempted to clear her mind before she let the pads of her fingers brush it.

Instantly, the pain that she had felt from the tree slammed into her once more, but this time she refused to let go of the contact. Is was if a hundred different voices were attacking her at once, each one demanding and begging for her attention. It was nearly overwhelming, and Kara used all her strength to cordon of a corner of her mind where she barricaded herself against the barrage. Finally, the roar muted, and even though she could feel it banging on the door, Kara thought it safe to reach out tentatively for what she was looking for.

There were pulses of energy in the woods, dulled by time but running deep. Slow shifts of power and magic. She felt her own magic grow and she let a tendril of it touch one of the points gently. It flared, as bright as the sun. Unbidden, a tear trailed down her cheek and a deep feeling of belonging filled her.

_Home._

Then came an attack. Like a thousand knives cutting into the core of her. It wasn’t from the energy, but it still used the magic in this place, making her skin feel like it was on fire and causing a splitting headache to erupt in her mind. She pulled her hand away from the root, but still, the attack didn’t stop, the walls in the corner of her mind that she had hidden herself falling apart as she fell back on the ground. The voices rushed and overwhelmed her, piling on top of her higher and higher in a suffocating symphony. And all the while, the pain never let up. 

Her body started to convulse, shaking hard and fast before finally, her mind went blank.

* * *

She awoke in her bed in the castle, cold and blinking, chill in the air hitting her face like cold whispers. Her muscles felt stretched as if she had run a mile too fast. Krypto stirred beside her bed, and she turned her head, and realised that he was curled up near the dying embers of the fire. Something had happened in the woods, and Kara began to recall, something happened.

Her mind struggled, feeling slow and sluggish as she grasped for the memory. Only a thread of it seemed to be left, but it was running away from her fast. Kara could remember whispering, and lights, and a looming figure in the darkness, but it all felt muted and wrong as if she was misremembering something important. 

And above all else, there was an overwhelming urge to sleep. But she couldn’t do that. Sitting up with a groan, her head throbbed, and she pressed a cold palm against it.

“What happened?” She asked with a croaked voice, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth, and she realised she had bitten the inside of her cheek.

She couldn’t even remember her return from the forest. 

“The last time I felt this bad was at summer solstice fifteen years ago,” Kara muttered, her words vibrating up her jaw and compounding her headache.

She turned her head to groan into her rough pillow, the sound of Krypto standing and shifting barely registering before his rough tongue scraped across her fingers. Peeling one eyelid open, she stared at her dog blearily. He wasn’t overly affected by missing memories and headaches, his tail thumping against the floor once he had gained her attention. Closing her eyes once more, she tried to recall fleeting elvish words.

_“Heal.”_

A warm tingle ran across her skin, easing her pains, but while her headache dulled slightly, it didn’t vanish. Still, it was enough for Kara to sit up and swing her legs down onto the floor, anger growing in her heart. The only way that the pounding in her head didn’t disappear entirely at her spell would be because the cause of it was magical.

Which means the rumours were based in fact, and that there was something, or someone, magical in De’Eoh Forest. And whatever it was had to be strong, very strong to blackout time from her memory. Did she somehow get back her by herself or did someone bring her? Teleportation spells weren’t unheard of, but the caster would have to know exactly were to teleport her too. Which means they would know who she was and probably either be or have a connection, to someone in the castle.

Which didn’t bode well for her or her mission in this place.

A lord struck down, a contradictory family and magic in the forest. 

Maybe there was something to all these rumours. 

Regardless, there was little she could do about it with her head hurting like this. Peering out the narrow window, she saw that the moon had set, but the stars still shone brightly overhead, deciding the find out where in the kitchens were in the hopes of finding something natural that might cure her headache. Standing gingerly, she hosted a brief second of panic at her loss of equilibrium and immediately reached her hands up to touch the tips of her ears.

Blessedly round, which meant her glamour was still in place.

She let out a relieved breath, reaching for her blades and belt slung over her bedpost. Lashing it around her waist, slinging her bow and arrows to her back, she made her way to the door and began slowly walking down the stairs, Krypto close as always.

After finding the kitchen and a scalding cup of willow tea, Kara felt her keen edge of awareness and anger return and knew she would be unable to sleep. Feeling a strong need to hit something urgently, she found her way to the indoor practice courts, ready to set herself across from a target and shoot it until it split in two. 

Instead, she heard the sound of steady thunking, practised beats of music she knew as blade biting into wood. She wondered who on earth would be practising with a blade this time of the night — somebody who couldn't get to sleep maybe, or an overeager squire keen to improve his swordsmanship. 

She slowed down as she reached the stone archway leading to the court, lingering in the shadows to observe. A lone figure stood before a wooden dummy, moving steadily through polished and practised movements. A leather strip encircled her brow, restraining voluminous black hair, which tumbled behind her shoulders in a lustrous cascade. Kara’s eyes widened in surprise when the figure turned, recognising her face. Lena, who held her slender sword with practised ease, and wore plain black leather, clothing her frame, poor raiment for one so fair. 

She watched silently for a few minutes, curiosity growing while her mind churned, her interest growing every time the woman slid from one smooth movement to another. It was as if she was dancing through water, and Kara couldn’t help the smile that curled at the corner of her mouth. With her sweeping downward cuts, lunges and overhead blocks, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Lena knew what she was doing and knew it well.

But why would a reclusive bastard daughter of the north know so much about swordplay, and be so skilled? And why did Kara feel like all the strange threads of this place were somehow connected and weaving a tapestry that she couldn’t yet see? 

Suddenly, Lena was dancing away from the mannequin, nimble footwork betraying her agility as she started to fight with an invisible opponent. Kara stepped back further into the shadows, but she needn’t have worried. Lena was fighting with her eyes closed; every movement practised muscle memory.

Feeling bold, Kara gestured for Krypto to stay before stepping forward and drawing her own short sword. Lena whirled with her invisible opponent, lunging forward to attack. Kara caught her down-sweeping sword with a force that jarred both their bodies and Lena’s eyes flew upon with shock.

Their blades locked together, unmoving, Lena stared at her, rigid and with wide eyes. Kara’s smile curled further, and she gave Lena an approving nod.

“You’ve some skill with a blade.”

Fire flashed in Lena’s eyes at her word, instantly disengaging her blade and swirling their swords around and away, before cutting at Kara’s side. Kara blocked it hurriedly, lunging back out of the way, before mimicking the movement and swung her shorter blade back in the other direction and forcing Lena to block her in turn.

Their swords locked, Kara could feel Lena try to push her away with a strength that surprised her, but Kara couldn’t be moved.

Letting out a snarl, Lena finally spoke. 

“And what would a minstrel from the south know of such things?”

Kara’s grin widened, seeing how it infuriated the other woman and wondered how much it would take for Lena’s temper to get the better of her and make a mistake in anger. 

Kara attacked, divorced from her arm as she moved through movements she learned before Lena was even born. Pass after pass they sparred, Kara being stretched further then she thought she would, but still not allowing Lena to win. It had been some time since Kara had fenced with anyone, preferring to use a long-range weapon like her bow, and she found herself enjoying it even as sweat beaded on Lena’s forehead. 

“You’d be surprised what us minstrel’s from the south know, my lady,” she said with a laugh, Lena’s eyes narrowing slightly before a look of cool calm fill her face.

Suddenly, Lena stumbled, and Kara took advantage of the brief moment of unbalance to lunge in for a strike that would end the bout. Instead, much to her shock, Lena’s blade slid around Kara’s sword like a metal snake, twisting her blade deftly. 

The sword flew from Kara’s hand and she was unable to grab for it, for in the same movement in which she had disarmed her, a panting Lena presented the tip of her sword at the bridge of Kara’s nose.

Kara blinked at the metal, stunned that she had been tricked, realising that Lena had used her confidence against her, marking her as the superior opponent if not the strongest of their bout.

Lena stared at her, gasping as if her lungs were on fire, but blade unmoving before Kara held her hands up, yielding. Lena hesitated for a brief second before a ghost of a smile crossed her face, and a flicker of happiness entered her eyes. 

She dropped and sheathed her blade.

“I suppose the women of this country learnt long ago,” Lena husked, sounding ragged. “Those without swords can still die upon them.”

Before Kara could move to do it herself, Lena stepped to the side and picked up her blade, handing it back to Kara after weighing it in her hand. 

“Well,” Kara replied, taking and sheathing it. “I can’t speak on that… but you certainly seem to know your way around a blade.”

A hardness filled Lena’s face, turning it cold and impassive. Stepping away from Kara, she walked towards a bench and picked up a cloth, patting her face dry.

“I heard of your exploits at dinner,” she answered after Kara followed her. “It seems that you’ve made a good first impression.”

Kara remembered Lena’s appearance in the stables earlier, and how she already knew who Kara was within a few minutes of her arrival. She tried to consolidate all the scraps of information she had learned about Lena in the brief time she had known of her existence and form a picture of her in her mind, but so far she was coming up short. There was still something, something hidden, beneath everything else. Something glaringly evident that Kara wasn’t seeing.

“With your brother, maybe,” Kara ventured. “But I fear that the lady of the castle doesn’t much care for me.”

The back of Lena’s shoulders went rigid at her words.

“My step-mother is a purveyor of finer arts then your's I fear,” she answered icily.

Kara's eyes traced Lena’s strained muscles, shifting slightly so her eyes could trace down the side of Lena’s taut face and finally finished on Lena’s shaking hands. Despite herself, Kara frowned and felt a pang of concern. 

A brief image flashed in her mind, of reaching out to take her hands in her own and hod them until they sat steady.

Kara blinked.

_Where had that come from?_

She shook the thought from her head, walking away from Lena and towards the wooden dummy. Running her fingers down the deep grooves in the wood. 

“And what of you, my lady?” She asked over her shoulder. “Perhaps you have reconsidered a private audience.”

Her ears picked up on Lena’s shuddered breath, shifting her feelings to the side, a sense of satisfaction flared when Lena walked toward her, rubbing her arms as if she had a chill and staring at her handiwork too.

“A pity you don’t have your instrument with you now then, for I might have heard you play.”

Kara glanced at the other woman, wondering at the strange emotion in her tone. Almost distracted, as if she wasn’t entirely sure of what she had said or why. Kara’s eyes traced over Lena’s face once more, taking in the deep purple bags under her eyes.

“Yes,” she replied in a gentle tone. "But I think I have stumbled upon a different type of artistry tonight. Though I must wonder why you’re here, practising swordplay by candlelight, my lady.”

The corners of Lena’s mouth tightened at her final words.

“Is it also common in the south for minstrels to demand answers from their betters?” She snapped back haughtily.

“No,” Kara answered slowly. “But surely you must know that you seem to inspire uncommon questions.”

Kara certainly hadn’t meant her words to hurt, but Lena looked like they had struck her. Her already pale face seemed to reach a new shade of white, and her next words came out whispered and weak.

“My step-mother doesn’t… approve of me playing at being a shield-maiden.”

Kara didn’t know why, but the words made her angry. Her overall impression of Lillian, which had already been terrible, dropped by several degrees. Kara had always struggled with her temper, ever since her people had died, but most days she straddled the points between distance and over-involvement in other people’s problems. Even when she was young, her unbidden inhibitions and emotional displays had gotten her into much trouble with her family.

But even though she should remain objective, the women in front of her, who so obviously carried a spark of defiance, made Kara instantly want to drag the Lady of the castle out of her bed and present her in front of Lena to be struck with the sharp end of her sword.

Thinking on that, Kara pointed to Lena’s blade. 

“It doesn’t seem like you’re playing at anything, my lady,” she answered steadily. “Your moves are sound. And it is wise to know how to defend oneself in these troubled times.”

Lena nodded distractedly before her eyes turned sharp.

“And how do _you_ know the way of the sword?”

Kara sighed internally, realising that once again, she had been stupid enough to inspire questions about who she was because she had decided to show-off. Or, whatever other reason she had for revealing she could fight well with a blade.

“As much as any minstrel would, my lady,” she answered modestly as if she wasn’t aware of her skill.

Lena didn’t seem convinced, her eyes turning to the quiver on Kara’s back.

“I see the bow you’ve been carrying since you first arrived,” she said. “A fearsome weapon.”

Kara shrugged as if it were of little import to her.

“It suits me well enough, my lady.”

There it was again, a tightening of the eyes.

“Tell me, Linda Danvers,” she said stiffly. “What brings _you _to the north in these troubled times?”

Kara waved her arm vaguely.

“Is spreading good cheer not enough?”

“I suspect that there is more to you then meets the eye.”

_The same could be said of you._

Still, Kara grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of her neck.

“You suspect correct,” she answered with a grin. “I’m also an aspiring juggler, and I heard tell that you northerners juggle the best.”

Lena’s mouth twisted into a scowl.

“You think you’re humorous, minstrel, has no-one ever told you otherwise?” She spat venomously.

Kara sighed.

“Alas, all too many have. Yet, I can not bring myself to hold my tongue.”

Lena’s face darkened further, full of threat and menace, yet it didn’t seem to be directed at Kara.

“You should fear to be so flippant within these walls,” she cautioned. “It is a luxury afforded only to a select few.”

A piece shifted in Kara, an understanding. Taking a step forward, until she was within Lena’s space and the woman’s breath caught in her throat.

“And what do _you_ fear, Lena?” She whispered, the informality of the moment moving something in Lena’s eyes. A wanting, a yearning, as if she was both relieved and terrified for Kara to speak her name aloud.

“A cage,” Lena breathed as if pained. “To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them. And any taste of freedom has gone beyond recall or desire.” 

Her emotions were not easily hidden on a grave face. Her pain was evident in the crease of her lovely brow and the down-curve of her full lips. But Lena’s eyes, her eyes showed her soul. They were a deep pool of restless, ocean storm green, full of hopeless grief. As Kara looked into her eyes, she knew, all the beauty of the universe could not even hope to compete with this simple thing: passion. Passion turned Lena’s eyes into orbs of the brightest fire, and in them, she read clearly that Lena would fight to the very last tear for her life. Lena would not let the world break her. She could cry, but she would never let anyone take her true self from her. Lena clung to it with passion. A passion that made her beautiful.

And suddenly, Kara understood just a tiny piece of her. 

Shaking her head with incredulity, Kara answered Lena’s words.

“You’re a descendant of kings,” she stated emphatically, forcefully enough for Lena’s eyes to snap to hers. “A shield-maiden of the north. I do not think that will be your fate.”

Kara bowed deeply then, holding Lena’s gaze, before turning on her foot and walking away. Of all the things that had happened to her tonight she thought, the thing she understood least was why she felt like she had left a part of her heart behind her on the court.

* * *

When Lena thought of the word Fae, she thought of something ethereal and beautiful beyond compare. A being, made of sunlight, magic, and nature, filled with mischief and hidden dangers.

This elf was anything but. 

Whilst it was true that there was a strange ethereal beauty to her features, her likeness to Lena’s imaginings ended there. The elf before her looked like she was made of starlight and shadows, the darkness around her seemingly bending to her every whim. Horns stood proudly amongst her hair, their twisted points almost making it seem as though she had a crown of thorns resting atop the silken strands. And from the loose-fitting sleeves of her beautiful clothes, she could faintly see that one of her hands was entirely made of bone and wisps of dark magic, the stark white digits casually and deftly twirling a rose as she watched Lena in silence.

There was a strange sensuality to the smirk upon her lips. Even the magic around her seemed to ooze with seduction, though it still carried the faint taste of danger and death to it as it swirled around Lena teasingly. 

It was her steely blue eyes however, that truly stole Lena’s breath.

Despite the relaxed way she held herself, her eyes seemed to cut straight through to Lena’s soul, leaving nothing unseen and keeping Lena frozen to the spot. She felt almost like prey, staring up into the open maw of a predator, and Lena knew without question that she was utterly at her mercy.

Though it wasn’t uncommon for stray travellers to go missing in the woods at night, something told you that this elf had been searching for Lena specifically, just waiting for her to step into their domain, and to get Lena alone.

As she finally started to saunter towards Lena, she could only stand there and shiver with nerves, wholly rooted to the spot. 

Whatever the outcome of this interaction, Lena doubted she would be leaving this forest tonight.

Once the elf was finally in front of her, smirking down at her, Lena found herself unable to breathe or look away. The elf reached a hand up and gently ran her ice-cold fingers down Lena’s cheek until her lips were a hairsbreadth away from Lena’s.

_Run with me. _

The elf held herself much as branches do and other things so natural. Lena supposed she had come to forget how stiff humans could be as if they carry a fear this elf didn't — moving as fall leaves do, freely yet within the flow of creation, a clear purpose woven with nobility and purpose. Lena stood still. Of course, the elf knew of her presence long before she was aware of her; she always did, for she was truly wild. Lena took a moment to let in the sacred spirit, to resonate with her, for she was bound only by nature's laws - not the sort for lesser animals - perhaps the highest kind, which promises safety for the loving and danger for the dangerous.

The elf has a gaze that spoke of intelligence. Without words, Lena was aware of her heart, of every emotion that swam beneath those stormy features. In her movements was a softness, an inner peace that reminds Lena of the forest deer, that the elf was truly here in this moment and no other. Lena had been in so many rooms with so many humans and been alone, yet right here and now, she felt a connection, a conversation without spoken words.

Lena closed the gap between their lips, feeling heat run like a lightning strike through her entire body. 

_Of course._

* * *

It was the same dream, the same dream that had been haunting her since she was a child and unable to understand. The elf didn’t always approach her in her dream. When she had been younger, she would walk together with the elf through the forest in her mind. Sometimes the elf ignored her, not saying a word or looking at her, but not objecting when Lena sat by her side. But when she had grown older, the elf began to look after her with a questioning gaze, then intrigue and finally, as if she wanted to capture and devour her. And sometimes she did or almost did, Lena always cursedly woke up after the first kiss. And Lena couldn’t shake the feeling that she had seen the elf before in real life, some remnant of a memory staring in her mind. A familiarity. She wondered why she would dream of an elf when honestly she didn’t even know she was an elf. Lena had scoured the limited books in the castle library to learn everything she could about the fae, but the only descriptors she could find of elves looked nothing like the elf she saw in her dream.

It was frustrating, but Lena still knew that the woman _was_ an elf. 

Sometimes she wondered if she really was as mad and as cursed as everyone in the castle seemed to think she was. 

The strange thing was that Lena never tried to run from the elf. Never. Even though she like everyone else in the north knew precisely how dangerous the fae were. Orcs, monstrous beings that salted and burned farmland and killed her father’s soldiers. She had seen the men that had come back from those skirmishes disfigured if they came back at all. It had been hammered in her head her entire life that any member of the fae was not to be trusted, and unlike southerners, no child of the north would ever be expected to rub shoulders with one. 

She knew better than most how treacherous the fae could be. Fae marauders had murdered her mother right in front of her. 

But… she never ran away from the elf. It had become her secret, her shame, another thing that was wrong with her. At least in the way that Lillian tried to make everything that she was or did something _wrong_ with her. Lena had learned early in her life that Lillian was a person to be avoided at all costs. The other woman seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in tormenting her in every way that she possibly could, and ever since her father had fallen ill, Lena was unable to escape her angry eye.

Lena let out a sigh, still feeling exhausted, and opened her eyes to stare up at the stone ceiling. It wasn’t like she had gotten much sleep last night after all. Not that she got much sleep any night. But there had been that bloody minstrel, though if she was a minstrel Lena was a dancing bear, who had caught her out in a midnight training session. And curse her, because Lena hadn’t just dropped her sword and ran for it, instead she had _sparred _with her.

And _lingered._

The second Lena saw her when she had ridden into the castle courtyard, the strangest stranger she had ever seen with a black bow, two swords and a dog that could more accurately be described as a wolf. Lena had been hiding, lurking as Lillian would call it, in the shadows as she always did, but she still closed her mouth with a click when she realised it had been gapping. The stranger with her long sunshine-golden hair that had partially obscured her face. Until she had tossed her cloak back and revealed a sculpted face, as perfect as a painting, with a round chin, high cheekbones and long eyelashes that gave her a dimly exotic look, at least to Lena’s northern eyes, Lena could feel the blood flushing her cheeks, burning as she looked at her. Something awoke in her, something she had only ever felt before in her dreams. It was like an obsession, except stronger, almost a fevered madness. Dressed in pants and a shirt, tall and with broad shoulders, the stranger dressed like a man and wore weapons like a man and Lena knew that she was hopelessly lost in someone she had only watched for a minute. And all she could do was wonder why nobody else was as riveted to the stranger as she was. 

There was something so familiar about her, something in her mind calling to her, like another half-forgotten memory. A shimmering memory of wild, haunting beauty. She was luring her closer, telling her to submerge herself. It wasn’t normal, and it certainly wasn’t natural.

She couldn't help but wonder if that was Lillian’s voice, instead of her own. 

“M’lady, are you awake?”

Lena shook her head, her thoughts scattering as she sat up and smiled weakly at her maid. Blessed Jess, who was one of two people in the entire world that she felt she could trust and didn’t look at her with suspicion. Jess who hovered and fretted and guarded her with an intense loyalty that was only occasionally smothering. 

Jess set down the tray of food she had brought down, before walking over to Lena’s dresser and pulling out a dress for her to wear. 

“I thought perhaps, m’lady, you might like to wear the maroon dress today?” She asked, hopefully.

Lena shook her head despondently, longing for the leather armour she had finagled out of the castle armourer, hidden under a loose floorboard in the stables.

“I don’t suppose fashion has changed overnight and women are now wearing something less… constrictive?”

Jess tutted, laying the dress out and practically shooing Lena towards her food.

“M’lady, one day, you will stop rebelling.”

Lena snorted, picking up a blueberry and rolling it in her fingers.

“The day I die,” she muttered under her breath, before dropping the blueberry back on her plate, lacking in appetite.

Jess watched her with concern but wisely decided not to say anything on the matter, instead diverted the conversation cheerfully.

“What would you like to do today, m’ lady? Perhaps we could visit the library? Or maybe beg some of those apple tarts from the kitchen that you love so much? And tonight, perhaps you’d like to eat dinner in the hall? There is a visiting minstrel, and the other servants say she is very good-“

“No,” Lena interrupted, trying to sound nonchalant as her heart pounded in her chest. Still, she couldn’t stop the sudden ache in her chest, and last nights memory filled her head. Their blades clashing against the other's, the intense feeling of pride she felt at the other woman’s look of respect when Lena disarmed her.

It begged the question of how a _minstrel _knew how to use a sword so well. But, she supposed, the same question could be asked about her. But the last thing she needed to do today was to see the woman, with a clouded head full of unbridled fascination. 

“I think I’ll draw today.”

Lena saw the flicker of concern on Jess’ face at her words.

“Well, maybe you could draw in the-“

“In my room, I think,” Lena cut in.

Jess let out a sigh.

“Are you planning on leaving your chamber at _any_ time today?”

Lena ignored the complete lack of subtlety, and instead pushed her tray away and pulled her drawing paper and charcoal towards her. Ignoring Jess who settled in a chair, pulling out the needlework she always let Lena claim if Lillian started dressing her down on her unproductively, Lena slowly started to sketch. First, she began with her uneaten breakfast, then Jess, then her drawers. Then, unable to stop herself, she started drawing a pair of piercing eyes. 

Before she got lost in the drawing, her concentration was broken by a sharp rap on the door. 

“Are you awake, sister?” Her brother’s voice called out.

Jess jumped to her feet as if she had been stung.

“M’lady isn’t decent yet, she still wears naught but her shift, m’ lord!”

Lex’s laugh sounded through the door. 

“Still undressed at this hour, Lena? What will people say?”

Lena smiled, standing to her feet, and despite Jess’ objections, she opened the door on her brother’s smiling face.

“You mean what will Lillian say brother mine?”  


Lex laughed, pushing past her and into the room, picking up the apple as he passed and biting into it with a crunch. Reaching out, he picked up Lena’s rough drawing and Lena thanked the spirits that she hadn’t drawn anything but the minstrel's eyes. 

“This is good,” Lex said after a short study. “Who’s the subject?”

Lena grimaced, plucking the paper from his hand.

“It’s always good, Lex, she murmured, a sudden urge filling her to hide it away with her armour and sword under her bed.

“Aye, but you’re getting better,” Lex replied, sitting down.

Lena huffed, sitting across from him on her mattress.

“Well, at least it’s a feminine pastime,” she replied.

Lex looked around her room, his eyes lingering on the dying flowers on her bedside table.

“You don’t have to stay hidden away, you know,” he said gently. “It’s ok to get some sunlight, as precious little that there is.”

Lena frowned, looking down at her feet. 

A part of her wanted to. Would have loved to leave her room and lived outside her stone walls. But she felt safe here, in a way that she didn’t anywhere else. And even though she loved Lex and she knew he loved her, Lena doubted that his idea of her getting sunlight would extend beyond chaperoned walks on the walls and courtyard. And the one thing she hated more than isolation was pretending to be someone that she wasn’t. 

It was too exhausting. 

“No, I prefer it here,” she answered, trying not to let bitter humour enter her voice. “Locked away in my bower. Out of sight, out of mind. If father were awake, it might be different, but as long as he remains asleep, I’d sooner risk death in the dark than your mother’s harsh eye.”

Lex waved away her concerns casually, and not for the first time she felt a stab of bitter resentment directed towards him. It was all very well and good for him. Freedom and life were at his fingertips always, and he would never have to live under the shadow of illegitimacy. And rumours of being some evil entity. Rumours that she was certain Lillian had no trouble encouraging.

“You needn’t worry about her,” Lex answered.

Lena scowled.

“I’m not her golden child, Lex.”

He snorted dismissively, and Lena cursed his male ego.

“Maybe, but I’m in charge, even if temporarily,” he said flippantly. “And I say you are free to go where you may. There is a minstrel in the castle; it would do you some good to hear a song.”

Lena was starting to wonder if the universe was conspiring against her. 

“Maybe,” she breathed out.

Lex smiled at her, clearly happy with her response, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box.  


“Here, I brought you a gift.”

Opening it, he pulled out a necklace. It was simple, which Lena liked, with a single, strange purple stone. Standing to his feet and holding it out, Lena stood as well, moving her hair so he could secure it around her neck. Once it’s weight had settled, she picked up her small mirror and inspected it.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, feeling touched and slightly uplifted by his thoughtfulness.

Lex's fingers squeezed her shoulders.

“You must promise to wear it always.”

“I promise.”

Lex turned her and pulled Lena into a soft hug.

“I love you, little sister,” he breathed into her hair. “Never forget that.”

She sighed, feeling secure in his embrace.

“I love you too, Lex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts! Let me know in the comments below, or follow and message me on Tumblr @assumingminds19. I love chatting and I'm always up for an ask or message.


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